Kanto Journey
by Growlithe2
Summary: Ash starts his journey with knowledge and his pokemon pal he met a year before his journey started. Travelling across kanto to be the very best! anime/game
1. Chapter 1

**AN: first time writing something other than an essay for school. Couple things, ash wont catch a ton of pokemon im thinking twelve at the max. also no levels, ive always thought in the anime and stuff when someone said "that pokemon is at a high level" I always thought of it like when people say for basketball lebron is on another level or at a such a high level of shooting accuracy, there's no set level, jus can tell there awesome. I don't own pokemon..**

COME ON J, WERE GONNA BE LATE!

A frantic sounding 'jolt' was all the raven haired child got in return

The kid was 13 years old, he stood slightly above average height for his age, he also had black as night hair, soft amber eyes adorned with a pair of z shaped birthmarks under them.

Hearing the yells his mother, Delia, came around the corner "you better get a move on ash! Or do you want to be the last to leave pallet town?"

"Well if J would hustle up, we wouldn't be in this situation!" replied Ash just as he was hit with a mild electricshock from the top of the stairs. Sending the shock was a dog like pokemon with yellow fur and a white mane around his neck.

Shrugging off the slight shock was an easy task for ash as he had built up quite a tolerance for electricity in the past year. "Finally you're ready to leave! Lets roll J! I'll be back to say bye after mom!" were his parting words to Delia as she quietly giggled to herself with a sad smile, watching him sprint down the road away from their home.

Running through main street of pallet town hoping to not be late was almost a daily occurrence for ash by now. For the past three years he'd been working for the world renowned professor oak and although five extra minutes in bed can make difference in how you feel, it can also be the difference in being late or on time to work.

Ash's duties at the ranch made it a dream job for him growing up, they included cooking or buying the pokemon food (depending on the amount of jobs oak left for him that day) and feeding the pokemon, observing them and writing down the observations for professor oak, some odd jobs like shining trainers pokeballs and he may have been a test subject a few times for the old professor, but it was all part of the learning experience for him.

He sure had learnt a lot from the professor, what berries in the wild were edible, how to take care of an injured pokemon, pokemon types, their advantages and disadvantages, he could name every pokemon native to kanto, and the professor sometimes graced ash with a mock battle to help him, although since the prof was a former champion, ash usually lost handily with any pokemon the prof let him borrow, although ash was a natural battler according to oak, he didn't have the experience to keep up.

Working for the professor and learning all of this information was what made him be accepted to being sponsored by Oak. Every year the professor only sponsored three starting trainers, the first had to come to pallet, to take a written test where only the top ten marks made it to the next round, where you were personally interviewed by professor oak where he would pick his favorites.

These trainers received one of the three starter pokemon, charmander, bulbasour or squirtle, a pokedex and their pokemon would be able to live at his ranch. Other trainers only got a license with a similar look to a drivers license, and a profile on the pc that their pokeballs and the pokemon inside were electronically stored This year though had four since ash wouldn't be receiving a starter pokemon, the professor only needed an extra pokedex. Which any trainer could purchase from silph co although they were extremely expensive. He knew gary had gotten a spot that smug bastard, but the other two were out of towners he heard.

All those memories ran through his head clearly.

But the day he met jolteon was the clearest though.

1 year ago

'I always need that extra snooze button don't I' ash grumbled to himself as he ran up the steps to the professors lab. He heard quite a ruckus coming from the front doors and looking up he could see what seemed like a 16 year old yelling ludicrous amounts of profanity at professor oak who stood in the doorway with a slight frown on his face. Just as ash approached the front door the kid suddenly turned around and stormed off past ash, almost knocking him over and glaring daggers at anything that moved he yelled out over his shoulder "you haven't seen the last of me". Turns out that trainer named ray had been found to have been abusing his pokemon and after a nurse joy who discovered the injuries reported them to oak, he had just had his training license, pokedex, and his pokemon, taken away from him.

Ash sat across the table from the professor as they stared at the 12 pokeballs in between them.

"So what's the plan for these pokemon professor?" asked Ash while not taking his eyes from the spheres in front

"That depends" replied Oak as Ash gave him a confused look

Smiling at the face Ash was making, Oak proceeded with his thoughts "it depends on what the pokemon want, for a short time I'm going to keep them here to recover and relax, after that its up to them, to stay, go back home, or I can even set them up with a new trainer if that's what they wish" Ash just nodded his head, thinking over the possibilities "but enough talking to eachother" the professor stated, pulling Ash from his thoughts. "We still have to inform the pokemon of their lifestyle change"

Walking out the back sliding door oak threw six balls into the air as Ash mirrored his movements

12 flashes of light took form and stared at the older human in the lab coat and the child next to him curiously but as ash made eye contact with each he could see the fear in their eyes. Professor Oak spoke to them about the events of the morning and their options after they stayed to recover for a couple weeks, and all of them were happy, except for one.

Jolteon was different, all the pokemon owned by the trainer were abused physically but he had been mentality abused, making him very resentful to everyone. Being forced to evolve by being beaten into submission could do that though.

After the speech the 12 pokemon left to different parts of the ranch but stayed in small groups. Jolteon immediately left by himself sprinting off. Ash made sure to watch where he left to though, because professor oak had jus tasked him with feeding the new pokemon.

Jolteon found himself in a isolated part of the ranch after a minute, and after taking awhile to catch his breathe since they were still slightly broken down from Looking around he thought no one was watching as he sprinted and jumped the corral fence, although if he hadn't been in such a hurry, he would've seen the black haired child walking towards him with food bowl in hand.

Seeing jolteon jump the fence, ash immediately knew he was in trouble. Jolteon, along with the rest of Rays former pokemon were all quite weak still, and some wild pokemon around pallet like fearow wouldn't think twice about attacking him even with the type disadvantage.

Dropping the bowl Ash took off in a sprint after jolteon, but decided not to yell after him, jolteon was resentful of humans and seeing one chasing him screaming his name probably wouldn't help he thought.

A few minutes later and Ash was still on jolteon's trail but had lost sight of him after he ran through some bushes that ash was just about to pass through when suddenly a loud yip that sounded like it came from jolteon was heard by Ash on the other side of the bush, so slowly separating the bush in front of him the view sickened him.

Ray held jolteon by the scruff of his neck screaming in his face "you ungrateful piece of shit, I train you, I spend money to make you into the powerful electric pokemon you are now, and you try and shock me and run? I hope the rest of the pokemon know better when I steal your pokeballs and take you back. But it seems that in our short time apart you forgot who the master was, I guess I'll have to teach you aga-" right then a fist connected with his nose and he dropped jolteon who instantly scurried a few feet away from his former trainer and looked up to see he was standing next to the child he remembered from the ranch.

"I think its time for you to leave" Ash stated in a cold voice, making jolteon shiver from the intensity, Ray however wasn't fazed.

Wiping his nose and seeing the blood gushing from it, made Ray instantly pissed "I suggest you get ready for the ass kicking of a lifetime kid" he replied smoothly before swinging a right hook at Ash's chin, quickly ducking it Ash went for an uppercut but was caught with a knee to the stomach before he could. Ash dropped to his knees and wheezed a few times, but Ray wouldn't let him recover before once again sending out a right hook which connected with Ash's chin this time, dazing him, and knocking him to his back, before sending a stomp into Ash's stomach. Ray waited a couple seconds but ash didn't move, looking around the clearing he saw jolteon frozen to the spot staring at Ash's limp body with its mind asking himself hundreds of questions like why was this human trying to help him? And why are these two fighting? Isn't it only for pokemon? He didn't even notice Ray sneak up behind him before he was raised into the air by his scruff once again. Ray laughed loudly as he heard jolteon yip in surprise "you really think some puny kid could stop me? No one fucks with me, not you, not my other pokemon and not some kid" he said still laughing "now I think I was right in the middle of teaching you a lesson wasn't I?" as he drew his non occupied hand into a fist and pulled his arm back about to throw a punch.

Jolteon waited for impact but only heard another connection before once again being dropped to the ground opening his eyes once again Ash was their in front of him but this time Ray was on the ground holding his jaw

"Pokemon are not ours to hurt, we don't beat them, were not masters of them, they are our friends and partners, we work together for a common goal, and abusing and making your pokemon live in fear are not things I can let slide" Ash stated in his loudest voice. 'I really hope that ray leaves, my whole body hurts, I don't think I can take another fight, but jolteon needs to be safe' "hey jolteon" Ash whispered "can you run back to the lab and get professor oak? Tell him to bring dragonite, I'll cover your escape"

Jolteon once again just stared at Ash with wide eyes 'this human is willing to get hurt so I can escape? Why would he? Why should he? Nothings in it for him but pain, maybe I should stay and help' "run now!" Ash said in a slightly louder whisper urging jolteon off. Jolteon finally decided to listen and took off to the bush line, looking back once the last thing he saw was Ash and Ray throwing punches at eachother.

Jolteon took off to the lab but already being hurt then the constant run and events he jus went through soon made him stop about halfway back for a breather. He may be fast, but he didn't have the endurance to go along with it.

"Gotcha!" cut through the air as jolteon found himself tackled to the ground looking up, Ray looked maniacally at him, face cut, bloody and what looked like his left eye already half swollen shut.

'No, no, NO! I cant go back with him, wait… where's Ash! He wouldn't let him come after me if he could, something must be wrong with him! I gotta help him!' jolteon thought

Ray layed on top of jolteon pinning to him the ground, but he forgot what most jolteon are famous for other than speed. Sending a course of electricity through his fur, it suddenly stood on end like thousands of needles

A pain filled scream laced the air as Ray rolled off jolteon as quick as possible and continued to roll in pain as jolteon stood up and sprinted again in the direction of the ranch, pushing himself to the limit to keep going as fast as he could.

Finally making it to the ranch he saw Professor Oak standing next to his dragonite asking if he saw Ash on his fly, Ash had been gone for awhile and oak was starting to get scared for him, since none of the ranch pokemon had seen him in awhile either.

Just as Oak was about to freak out he felt a tug on his pant leg

"Oh jolteon, what is it?" he asked, but jolteon just kept tugging on his pants in the direction of Ash

"Have you seen Ash by chance?" he asked, after receiving a quick nod and another tug Oak started assuming the worst "are you trying to take me to him?" another nod "is he okay?" Oak asked pensively, scared for the answer, a shake of the head signifying no made his stomach drop

"dragonite! Take me and jolteon and follow his directions!" quickly hopping on the massive dragons back they were off in a single beat of dragonites powerful wings.

Present

Ash remembered waking up in the hospital then next day and being there for two weeks recovering from the beating he had received, jolteon had never left his side and never had the rest of the year. Ray was found guilty of assault and attempted murder and is currently serving time in jail. The past year had been filled with martial arts lessons, training with jolteon, and mock battles with the professor, Ash never wanted to feel helpless again so he worked out hard, and practiced his fighting as much as possible, and he was excellent for only having practiced for a year.

Ash was pulled from his memories when he realized he was at the base of the hill Professor Oak's lab is situated on. Checking his watch ash had two minutes till the meeting time so he took the stairs at a leisurely place.

As he approached the front door he noticed the figure of his former best friend turned rival, leaning against the doorway with a pokeball spinning on his finger. A low growl came from jolteon as they approached Gary Oak.

Gary had his trademark smirk on his face as he heard the growl, flicking his spiky brown hair out of his face, he turned and faced Ash.

"Look who finally showed up, the loser and his mutt" jolteon growled even louder and crouched into attack position, but a reassuring pet on the head from Ash calmed him a bit

"What do you want Gary?" Ash replied in a disinterested tone

"I'm just here to warn you to watch your back, I know you think you're all high and mighty since you've already been training for a year, and right now I may not stand a chance, but I'm coming for you" he stated as he turned and slowly started to walk away.

Ash didn't even watch him leave, immediately opening the front door. Walking to where he knew the pokeball room was located with jolteon at his heels, he made his way around the large machines and other equipment till he walked through the door to the pokeball room and saw Professor Oak hunched over at a desk

"Hey Professor Oak, what's up?" Ash asked in an upbeat tone

"Hey there Ash, jolteon, I'm jus registering Gary as a trainer along with registering his starter, you jus missed him! I have your pokedex and five pokeballs right here, I also have jolteon's pokeball with me, and have already registered him to you profile I made this morning" Oak replied as he pulled open the drawer in front of him and pulled out the items. "You remember all the things a pokedex can do right?"

"Thanks professor! And ya I do, its my ID, I can look up moves and it gives tips on teaching them, and gives information about pokemon including their gender and what their special for or better known as, their 'ability'" Ash stated as quick as he could in excitement, while pocketing the pokedex and clipping the pokeballs to his trainers belt. Martial arts and work at the lab had toned down his excitable and childish spirit a bit, but it still managed to break through every once in awhile "I also wanted to thank you for helping me over the past three years and of course for jolteon" Ash said while scratching him under the chin, receiving a content growl from the eeveelution.

"It's been my pleasure Ash" Professor Oak replied with a bright smile while extending a hand out, which Ash grabbed in a firm handshake.

"I guess its time to head out, I'll call you once I get to Virdian!" Ash said turning around and making his way out of the lab.

Closing the door behind him, Ash and jolteon headed home, where he was met by his mom who gave him a bone crushing hug, his pokeball technology infused backpack with essentials in it. Knife, ropes, lighter, map, potions, antidotes, spare clothes, sleeping mat and bag, pokemon food, and some food for himself.

Ash walked away from his childhood home after a large lunch leaving behind a teary eyed Delia. By noon he had arrived at the entrance to route 1.

"Well buddy, this is where our real adventure begins" Ash stated looking down at jolteon

"Teon" he replied with a nod.

"Well what are we waiting for! Lets get goin!"

"Well I think that if we split the morning and afternoon into two separate sections, training in the morning and walking in the afternoon and evening we should probably make it to viridian in four days starting tomorrow morning, that's if everything runs smoothly by the way, and maybe we can find a new family member!" jolteon jus nodded his ahead along with Ash's speech. "I think we should take the walking trail, its cuts across lots of the driving roads and will save us some time, there are also quite a few clean ponds and clearings for breaks along the way"

Six uneventful walking hours and water breaks later Ash and jolteon had made good headway on their first day and stopped for supper, pulling out a two small bowls, ash filled one up with jolteon's pokemon food, and then pouring half a water bottle into the other as jolteons water dish, then sat down and devoured two sandwich and drank the remaining half of the water bottle.

"How do you feel jolteon?" asked Ash, looking over at his best friend. "I'm ready to talk a couple more hours, but we can stop if you're tired" jolteon seemed to snort at Ash and slowly walked away allowing ash to catch up to him 'jolteon never admits to being weak in any aspect' thought Ash as he smiled down at the canine-looking pokemon beside him.

They walked for half an hour before a loud chirp caught their attention, confused, Ash looked around for the source of the noise when he was suddenly blown off his feet from a gust of wind, jolteon immediately crouched low in a defensive position as close to ash as possible, a small brown and tan bird suddenly dropped from the sky in front of them, landing with its wings spread out, and puffed up, trying to make itself look large and intimidating, but a snort of laughter from jolteon seemed to deflate the tiny bird pokemon.

"Oh man, a year of self defense and I still get beaten up by a pidgey" Ash said sadly, making jolteon laugh louder

'Aren't pidgeys usually really passive though?' Ash thought as he scanned pidgey with his pokedex quick, which confirmed his suspicions.

"Pidgey, I'm not sure why you attacked me, but I'm sorry if I'm in your territory or something, but me and jolteon were just passing through, we'll be gone soon"

'Or maybe I should try and catch it, this pidgey sure seems to have a lot of spunk, the kind of pokemon I want on my team'

His musings were cut short as another sound was heard, but this time it was a loud caw. This time though another pokemon landed in the clearing, making a triangle out of the three adversaries,

"So what is this?" Ash yelled "some kind of territorial battle?" to which both birds nodded their confirmation

"I have a deal for you" Ash continued " how about winner gets the chance to battle me, if I win, you come with me, loser gets the territory, and if I lose, losing bird leaves and winning bird doesn't get captured" both pokemon just snorted at Ash shaking their heads no.

"Well I guess you're just scared of me then, you can see how strong jolteon is and you're to scared to fight him, you may even be scared to come with me, get strong and see the world…" Ash said with a flourish of his hand, turning around ash with jolteon at his heels began to walk away before once again being stopped by a chirp. Trying to conceal the smile on his face, ash turned back and looked at pidgey, who only narrowed his eyes and nodded at ash. But that's the only confirmation Ash needed. Sitting down, ash got comfortable left arm behind him holding him up while he stroked jolteon's head who laid down beside him, head on Ash's lap.

"Proceed" Ash said with a smile, that's all pidgey needed who shot off at spearow with a quick attack which surprised spearow, who threw himself out of the way, barely dodging the attack, spinning around pidgey beat his wings fast sending a gust of air at spearow who was already off balance knocking him into a tree, one more quick attack and spearow was badly bruised and breathing heavily, while pidgey only seemed slightly out of breath. Knowing he had just been humiliated, spearow bowed his head, accepting defeat, but not without making a promise to himself that he was going to make himself strong to come back and kill that damned pidgey. Flying up to a tree to roost, spearow decided to watch the next battle, he may not have won his, but he could still get the territory.

After half an hour, pidgey had recovered, and was ready for the next battle.

Walking to the end of the clearing Ash stood with jolteon in front of him "okay boy, you got this battle for yourself, I know you might be able to end it in one hit, but I wanna see what pidgey's got so make it last a lil bit."

"Jo-jolt!" jolteon confirmed

"ALright lets do this! You have the first move pidgey"

pidgey started the battle the same way launching a quick attack then going for a gust but jolteon easily sidestepped the quick attack and braced himself through the gust, only being pushed a few inches, and taking barely any damage, he retaliated with a weak thundershock, hitting pidgey head on, who fell to the ground, but quickly got back to his feet and took off into the air again, jolteon sent multiple thundershocks up into the air, pidgey looped, twisted and turned managing to dodge them before coming back in for a quick attack, getting bored, jolteon aimed well and sent out a large thunderbolt, hitting pidgey dead on and knocking him out.

Looking back at Ash who just smirked and shook his head good naturedly, before pulling out a pokeball and tossing at pidgey, no struggle was put up as the pokeball dinged, signifying capture. Jolteon ran over and picked up the pokeball in his mouth before returning to Ash's side and placing it in his hand

"Thanks buddy!" Ash thanked giving jolteon a scratch under his chin "lets head out, this is spearows territory now"

Giving spearow a wave Ash walked for half an hour, before stopping and pulling out pidgey's ball and releasing the tiny bird. Who had already woken up.

"Nice control on that thunderbolt jolteon, pidgey's barely hurt, just caught him on the head. Hey pidgey I got a couple potions here for you just let me spray them and you'll feel 100% in the morning" pidgey chirped affirmative as Ash sprayed him with the potions, pidgey cringed slightly in pain before he felt the wounds being soothed as they healed.

"Well, pidgey, my name is Ash, and this is my best buddy jolteon, but you can call him J for short. I just started my journey yesterday but me and jolteon have been buddy's for almost a year. My dream is to be the best trainer in the world, so I need the best pokemon. I think you have the potential for it, what do you think?"

Pidgey chirped happily and gave a determined look to Ash. So after explaining the plan for the next few days, Ash set up camp, rolled out his sleeping mat and bag and climbed inside. Jolteon curled up next to him and pidgey roosted up in a nearby tree.

Morning came quickly as Ash's watch alarm went off waking him and the pokemon up.

"Alright guys, go for a light jog and fly around the clearing before breakfast" yawning, both pokemon starting off slowly, but gradually woke up and increased their speed. Only having electric type pokemon food, ash went off and found a handful of berries for pidgey. After a light breakfast and stretching, it was training time.

"Alright jolteon, speed training, sprinting time! Then take a short break and go for a light run, then break and switch back." jolteon yipped and started his sprints with man makers in the clearing. "Pidgey hold up for a second, I have to scan you longer this time, so I can find out some more things about you." After a couple descriptions of the general species, Ash learned his pidgey was female and had an amazing eyesight, going as far as not being affected by sight impairing pokemon moves like sand attack.

"Pidgey that's great, now I think you should join jolteon. Fly one, then run one, and continue switching, if you're ever stuck on the ground you need to be able to move well!" pidgey nodded and took off over to join jolteon.

Ash did his own exercises while they trained, starting off with his own laps around the clearing, followed by push ups, sit ups, then going through his martial arts moves and stringing them together to make them flow smoothly and looking as if he was dancing through the moves. Being summer, the sun beat down and made it very hot and harder to train. Halfway through the morning they switched to new training, working on precision, control and power in their moves. Jolteon and his thunderbolt and pidgey with gust. Ash also, changed and looked up as much information as he could on pidgey and started compiling the moves he wanted to teach pidgey.

" Alright guys, lunch time!" Ash called

After lunch they travelled. Pidgey was worn down so she sat on ash's shoulder as they walked, jolteon was still fine though, having trained with ash for a year, and walked alongside them. Ash saw pidgey's stamina was lacking so he decided that the same training for pidgey the next three days was the best choice, 'no point learning a new move if you can't use it more than once ' thought ash. Jolteon was going to switch between that training and learning thunder fang, he still hadn't gotten it down and Ash could see how frustrated he was getting.

The first two days were uneventful, since the only attraction in pallet town was professor oaks lab, the driving roads were pretty clear usually, and the walking path was deserted most of the time. By about 3 pm the third day though, ash had started passing by other new trainers. Kanto was slightly split in two parts, with mount moon in the middle. If you walked the coast west from celadon you could bypass mt. moon but it was either weeks on a beach to the next town or through deep, thick forest. These barriers kept the weaker pokemon west or near the coast, so starting trainers always migrated this way, then once they could defend themselves better, they moved through mt moon again back east.

'I wonder who my first battle will be against" Ash thought to himself as he passed by a duo of kids wearing shorts and backwards hats. 'those kids sure made the right choice, its crazy hot and im in these slim black jeans, I wish they were comfortable like shorts. Well there is a clearing right there. Might as well rest there for a bit when he heard someone yell.

"Hey! Are you a trainer?"

Ash, looked up to see a girl approaching him, she was slightly shorter than ash and had her red hair up in a side ponytail, jean short shorts with red suspenders and a yellow tank top while walking a bike next to her

"I sure am! My names Ash by the way." Ash replied cheerily

"Im Misty, What do you say to a battle Ash?" Misty asked while pulling a pokeball out of the sackie backpack on her back

"Two on Two?" Ash questioned

"I was just about to suggest that" Misty stated "what do you say to 100 pokedollars?"

"Sounds good to me, get ready to lighten your wallet misty. Lets go pidgey!" Ash yelled pointing forward and pidgey flew off his shoulder.

"Just a pidgey eh? Misty calls staryu!" Misty yelled back throwing out a pokeball.

Out of the ball emerged a golden and brown five pointed starfish with a red gem at its center. That Ash quickly scanned with his pokedex.

"You have the first move Misty" Ash yelled across clearing

"Staryu water gun!" Misty called and the starfish released a jet of water at pidgey

"Pidgey! Up!" Ash replied and pidgey responded by flying straight up and out of the way

'That was slightly wide spread and pretty slow, this might be quicker than I expected

"Quick attack" Ash said in his normal voice, but pidgeys excellent hearing picked it up, and the shot at the starfish "aim for the gem" pidgey didn't make any sign that he heard but slightly raised its path of travel

"Dodge it staryu!"

But staryu only managed to move slightly out of the path of the speeding bird and was clipped on one of its appendages

"Gust while its off balance!"

Staryu was knocked back once again but this time from gust

"Come back with rapid spin!" misty yelled as she started to sweat nervously, boy she underestimated this pidgey, this thing didn't seem passive like the others!

Staryu righted itself and levitated slightly from spinning so quickly and launched itself at pidgey who was starting to level off from flapping its wings so hard for gust when it was suddenly hit on the back and knocked to the ground

"Water gun once more staryu!"

"Quick attack to dodge then gust"

The water gun was dodged and the gust flew and staryu on the side

"Finish it with quick attack!" Ash called.

The small bird pokemon flew quickly with a bright line trailing behind him

"Staryu you have to dodge!" Misty yelled desperately, but strayu was to worn down to react quick enough as pidgey struck it right in its gem. Pidgey flew back to shouts of congratulations from Ash while Misty returned staryu, who's gem blinked on and off signaling that it was down for the count.

"I may have underestimated pidgey, but it wont happen again!" Misty shouted defiantly "Misty calls starmie"

Ash quickly scanned it, but there had been quite a few on the ranch and he knew a lot about starmie.

'Looks like starmie is better trained than that staryu, pidgey is trying to look stoic, but he looks about ready to pass out' "pidgey come back!" Pidgey tried to look annoyed but the relief showed on his face. "Lets go jolteon!"

"Jolt!" he yelled excitedly back, taking a few steps out to the field

"Starmie water gun" Misty yelled quickly

"Duck Then thunderbolt!" jolteon laid on the ground and the water gun flew over his head, his fur crackled with electricity and the lightning bolt flew across and struck starmie.

"Starmie!" Misty yelled concerned as it fell to the ground

But the starfish pokemon finally got back to its standing position

"Rapid spin starmie"

The starfish flew across the clearing jolteon although quite slugglishly

"Wait for it jolteon" as starmie came within a few feet

"Thunder fang!" jolteon opened its mouth and went to bite down with electricity but it failed

'Oh man, I thought maybe the heat of battle could speed up the learning process, boy was I wrong' Ash thought as he saw jolteon get clocked by rapin spin and make its way back to the other side of the field

Jolteon was barely fazed by the attack though

"Agility to catch up, then thunderbolt!" jolteon immense speed was enhanced by agility and jolteon was soon enough right behind starmie with a thunderbolt all built up. Unleashing the large electric bolt point blank. The star dropped along with Misty's head as she knew she had been extremely outclassed. Returning her pokemon she looked up to Ash who was hugging and congratulating both his pokemon.

Sighing she took the money out of her wallet and walked over to the happily laughing and hugging gang

"Congrats" was all Misty said as she handed the bill to him

"Thanks!" Ash said as he grabbed the bill and pocketed it "that was a great battle! Hopefully we can do it again sometime!" Ash said as he started walking away with pidgey on his shoulder and jolteon beside him

"You better watch out, cause next time you're losing!" Ash simply tossed a hand up and waved without turning around as his response.

Four days after capturing pidgey, they arrived on the perimeter of Viridian City. The trio had battled a few more trainers along the way with two on twos, so whoever pidgey couldn't take out jolteon finished off for her, he had made quite a bit of cash for the short trip. Walking along the sidewalk Ash could only think about how huge the city was compared to pallet town. Following the signs, and directions received from people he passed on the street, he made it their in about twenty minutes

On the way to the center Ash walked past the enormous Viridian City gym. Him, jolteon and pidgey stopped in front of it and stared before jolteon started walking towards the door with the determined look Ash knew all to well

"Jolteon come back here buddy" Ash asked the canine who jus looked back puzzled he wasn't walking in with him, before walking back to his side, Ash knelt down and started petting him "I know you want to test yourself, but this gyms leader is famous for his brutality and being the strongest gym leader in kanto, we're to weak right now for him" this statement caused ash to be pricked by fur as he stood it on end slightly and gave ash an annoyed look "ouch! Come on buddy don't be annoyed, I promise once we get the seven badges of the main cities of kanto, we'll come back here and get our eighth and final one" jolteon just huffed and turned away. Ash sighed, he knew jolteon hated looking weak but there was nothing he could do about it. Jolteon had only spent two months with Ray and him and Ash only had time an hour or two every couple days to specifically train together since between work, studying so he would be picked to be one of oaks sponsored trainers, his moms cooking lessons, training himself in martial arts and jus down time to relax. Jolteon was still quite powerful for that minimal training. So although he was strong for a beginner trainer, there was no way he could stand up to someone experienced yet.

Walking through the doors the air conditioning hit Ash, pidgey and jolteon and they all sighed in relief, today was especially hot out and they were never happier for the central air installed in the center. Walking up to the counter, Ash saw a pink haired nurse and recognized her from the description professor oak had given him along with some crazy story that they every center had one and they all looked the same. Giving a friendly wave he spoke "hi nurse joy, my names Ash! I was hoping you could give pidgey and jolteon here a quick look over for me, and maybe you could rent me a room for the night?"

"Good afternoon Ash, of course I can, I just need your pokedex, the league keeps the centers open and running for free to all trainers, but I still need to register you stayed here." She stated as Ash handed her his pokedex.

"Alright, we're all set! Room 13, just down the hall, and if jolteon and pidgey can come with me" after receiving a nod from ash, pidgey flew and sat on joys shoulder, but jolteon wouldn't move. The previously annoyed and independent jolteon instantly started nuzzling ash's leg acting cute and trying to stay as close to Ash as possible

'Independent and hating to look weak, except when he has to be away from me' Ash thought with a shake of his head.

"Jolteon it's going to be fine, ill see you in a few minutes, alright?" jolteon shook his head no

"Please jolteon?" Ash asked giving his best puppy dog eyes, jolteon finally gave in and walked behind nurse joy but never took his eyes from ash until eyesight was cut from the door closing.

"I guess I'll go drop my bag off in the room" Ash said to no one as he walked down the hall

Unlocking his room he stepped in to see a single bed with a nightstand and a small bathroom with shower and toilet. Basic but effective. Heading back to front desk, ash sat in the lounge area and waited another ten minutes before he was tackled by a yellow and white blur.

"Hey buddy! See, it wasn't that bad right? Nurse joy was fine?" jolteon nodded his head and gave a yip. Ash then felt a weight on his shoulder and reached up and gave pidgey a pat on the head.

"Your pokemon are perfectly healthy Ash," the pink haired nurse told ash from the front desk

"Thanks nurse joy!" Ash replied happily "what do you say to an early night guys, I'm beat" ash directed to his pokemon who chirped and yipped a yes.

Opening the door to his room Ash immediately showered and climbed into bed with jolteon curled up against him, and pidgey roosting on the wooden bed frame.

"Alright tomorrow is rest and recover day, maybe a bit of exploring the city. Goodnight guys" Ash said sleepily receiving and annoyed chirp "I know you're a girl pidgey, it's just easier to say guys and refer to both genders though! Ash said, but only got the pokemon calling out its names in reply "alright, alright! Goodnight jolteon and pidgey" receiving a happy chirp and growl from both pokemon.

"So I'm thinking that we go to the pokemart and pick up some supplies, you need food pidgey and I should get another bag for jolteon, we're going through viridian forest to so antidotes and potions are a must have, it takes just over a week on the straight walk through, buuuuut, im thinkin we take the scenic route, get some training in before our gym battle. Then some sight seeing, stay one more day to relax because it's hard training as soon as we hit the forest. Sound good?" Both pokemon nodded affirmative "alright lets give'r then". Ash stated walking to the lobby

"Hey nurse Joy, you wouldn't happen to know where the pokemart is, would you?" Ash asked the pink haired woman

"Morning Ash, and I sure would. Walk out and take a left and walk to the next street then take a left and its just down the street, quite convenient in a big city like this to have them so close."

"No kidding, thanks nurse Joy!" Ash waved as he walked out

"You're welcome!" nurse Joy called out just before the doors closed behind Ash

'alright soooo lets see left theeeeennnnn… There it is!' Ash and his two pokemon walked up and passed the automatic sliding doors

Taking in his surroundings the mart was actually quite large although the city probably had a few set up around it.

'Alright aisle 1 for potions then 4 for antidotes and finally 15 for food' Ash mentally tallied as he looked at the signs hanging above each aisle

Ash grabbed a hand backet and filled in up with the potions and made his way to the food. On the way he passed by the tm aisle and looked at it longingly for a few seconds while in a mental debate, jolteon jus nudged the back of his legs and kept pushing him forward

"Ya ya, I'm going, I know we don't have enough money for that yet." Jolteon just gave a smirk to his best friend.

Most moves that can be learned from Tm's could be naturally taught, but it may take a couple weeks, but there were special moves like hidden power and return that took a tm for jolteon and most pokemon to learn. They were convenient for more experienced or rich trainers; otherwise it was just up to the trainer and pokemon to put the time in.

Ash picked up a bag of a bag of electric type pokemon food and flying type food for his two pokemon and put them in the basket before heading to the counter and paying for it, which took about three quarters of the money he earned on the way to Viridian to pay for.

Stepping back outside the crew spent the rest of the day just walking around the city, of course the got some odd looks, most trainers kept their pokemon inside their balls in cities, letting them out for battles or one or two, on routes as protection against wild pokemon, but pidgey and jolteon were small enough that they could stay with Ash, he certainly wouldn't have left something huge like a rhydon walk around with him in a city.

The next day Ash and his crew were up quite early. Ash took the added time to have a thoroughly warm shower, something he wouldn't get for a couple weeks, and ate a large breakfast in the pokemon center cafeteria, making sure that both jolteon and pidgey filled up to, today and tomorrow were just going to be dedicated to travelling and battles he had decided, maybe find a spot to spend 2-3 days training after that.

Ash said goodbye to nurse Joy as he walked out of the center, following the signage around the city Ash found his way to the city exit that would take him to Viridian Forest. You could see the humongous trees of Viridian Forest from the city, giving the impression they were close, but it took Ash about 15 minutes of walking to make it to the edge and the building that marked the entrance to the forest. You didn't have to go through the official entrance to make it into the forest but most trainers and tourists did since it doubled as a hotel/restaurant and a last pitstop to grab some last minute potions and antidotes, not to mention the only time most trainers would be graced with indoor plumbing for awhile, but Ash just bypassed the building completely, he had everything he needed plus extras just in case when he left the city.

Ash had been right to bring a few extra antidotes; the first coulple days had been filled with trainer battles, mostly with trainers known to the public as bug catchers. Bugs in their first stages were quite fragile and notoriously easy to catch so many beginning trainers flocked here to catch them and train them since their evolved forms could be quite useful since they evolved quite quickly and were powerful for a beginner. Pidgey had a field day battling the caterpie, weedle, metapod and kakuna. Ash even had to stop him a couple times from eating the bugs after knocking them out by returning him then releasing after with a promise that he could hunt tonight. Maybe he wouldn't need that flying type food after all. Jolteon was sent in and easily dispatched the couple butterfree and beedrill a few of the trainers had.

Close to noon the third day the team had been walking for a few hours already and hadn't run into a single person, probably cause he had broken off from the main trail to find a training spot, it wouldn't be hard to make it back to the trail since he was quite handy with a map and compass. All the battling was really showing from the past two days on pidgey, as her tailfeathers and the feathers on her head had grown slightly larger and looked to be changing color, while she her self was almost half a foot larger and much heavier. 'She must have been training for its battles with spearow for awhile, and had quite a few of them' Ash thought looking at her soar just above hime, he had her spend most of time flying, saying it was for endurance purposes but it was mainly to give his poor right shoulder a break from the not so tiny bird.

Passing through a group of bushes Ash found himself in a large clearing, Viridian River even passed through the edge of it. 'Perfect' Ash thought to himself "alright lets set up camp guys" Ash stated, unrolling his sleeping mat, bag and pokemon food for jolteon while jolteon and pidgey brought rocks from the rivers edge. Making a small circle out of the rocks for a firepit and collecting firewood from around the forest near the clearing he made a woodpile next to the circle.

"Go hunting Pidgey!" Ash called out as he put out food for jolteon before walking over to the river and filling up his canteens.

After eating a sandwich himself, Ash and jolteon laid back against a tree near the outskirts of the clearing, they sat and waited for pidgey to return with Ash absentmindedly petting jolteon. They didn't wait long, as she showed up about ten minutes later announcing her arrival with a loud chirp that sounded somehow frantic, looking up in the sky across the clearing he saw pidgey flying high up and evasively with what looked like needles flying at her.

"Jolteon, lets get going!" Ash said as they quickly jumped up and ran across the clearing almost at the same time as pidgey flew into it and four beedrill burst through the bush into the clearning their needle appendages dripping poison

'Crap, pidgey must have eaten some weedle near their nest!' "Jolteon, widespread thunderwave!" Blue electricity erupted from jolteon as it flew forward and hit the beedrill temporarily paralyzing them "now quickly hit them gust pidgey!" turning quickly pidgey flapped its wings sending out multiple gusts, striking the beedrill "now finish it with multiple thunderbolts" but before jolteon could send out its lighting, pidgey was suddenly engulfed in a bright white glow.

"Holy man, pidgey's evolving!" The shape inside the bright glow starting changing, growing much larger and her head plumage extending much farther and being mimicked by her tailfeathers. The glow suddenly died down and the newly evolved pidgeotto chirped loudly to the sky before taking to the air, sending a gust three times the size of its pre-evolution ones at the beedrill blowing them right out of the clearing.

Ash, jolteon and pidgeotto stood waiting for the beedrill to come back for a couple minutes, but they never did, only once the adrenaline stopped pumping did Ash fuly grasp the events of the battle

"Pidgey you evolved into a pidgeotto!" Ash yelled congratulations, while he stroked her crest and complimented her on it, while pidgeotto just basked in the compliments. Jolteon immediately began talking to her and complimenting her also.

The next few days were filled with training. Jolteon finally learned and was perfecting thunderfang and speed training, while pidgeotto spent all her time working on her speed and endurance which had already greatly increased with her evolution. Before they set off back to the trail to make their to pewter.

The next week was split between travel and some training. There was only a few trainer battles since they were so deep in the forest and ash had trouble since he was facing teams with fully evolved bug pokemon, but he pulled through in the end, making quite a bit of money from these bug catchers who were slightly overconfident.

He was only a couple days from the exit when he stopped by a sword being embedded in a tree beside him

Instantly Ash slid back into his defensive martial arts positing. Left leg in front of the right, bouncing slightly on his toes with hands in front of him open palmed with right slightly more bent closer to himself. Jolteon position head closer to the ground, front legs way out front growling and pidgeotto landing on the other side.

A kid almost as young as himself dressed in samurai armor emerged from the bush in front of ash, raising his eyebrows as he saw how Ash stood

"I see you have been trained. As have I, but that is not the fight I seek. You may call me samurai, and I challenge you to a pokemon battle. Two on two for let's say 750 pokedollars" Samurai stated, pulling a pokeball out of his armor

"I accept" Ash responded in a fake shaky voice, the sword he knew was to intimidate him and throw him off his game, so this samurai could make some easy money off new trainers exiting the forest.

"Pinsir battle time!" Samurai yelled throwing his pokeball, which a brown beetle like pokemon with two large, spiked, horn like protrusions on the top of his head erupted from the pokeball. Ash quickly scanned it with his pokedex before calling pidgeotto to battle

"First move is yours" Ash called to Samurai

"Alright pinsir start with focus energy!"

"Quick attack before he can finish" Ash responded as pidgeotto shot across and into pinsir before it could finish, effectively breaking its focus.

"Grab it with vice grip!"

PInsir quickly caught it with its horns and started squeezing around its midsection but since pidgeotto had been flying with its wings out, they were still free. Pinsir squeezed harder making pigeotto cry in pain

"Quickly pidgeotto gust!"

Pidgeotto quickly started beating its wings kicking up large winds, pinsir started stumbling and fell, releasing pidgeotto from its grip

"Sand attack then gust!"

pidgeotto flapped its wings blowing sand in pinsirs eyes then sent a gust at him, this ended up having a different effect than Ash expected. The sand in the air combined with the small tornado gust creating a combination attack that struck pinsir head on knocking him back down

"Whoa" Ash stated to himself, surprised at what he accidently made, "Alriight, one more gust make is as big as possible!"

pidgeotto started flapping as fast as possible building up a large gust in front of him, at the same time pinsir stood back up and started running at pidgeotto with the order of using seismic toss, but pinsir isn't known for its speed, and didn't get very close before pidgey sent the gust at pinsir, hitting him straight on, effectively knocking out the stag beetle pokemon.

Samurai growled as he returned his pokemon and pulled out another pokeball as ash congratulated pidgeotto who had landed lightly on Ash's shoulder but still almost knocked him down.

"Butterfree battle time" Samurai yelled madly throwing out the pokeball

Ash examined the Butterfree closely. 'pidgeotto could go another round, or I could end it rather quickly with jolteon, decisions, decisions'

"Well, pidgeotto you got the momentum, might as well keep it rolling, lets go!"

pidgeotto flew out and circled near Ash

"Sleep powder!" Samurai called and butterfree responded by releasing the fine powder from its wings and pushing it towards pidgeotto

"Blow it back with gust!" Pidgeotto sent it back to butterfree who flew above it, effectively dodging it

"follow up with quick attacks!" pidgeotto slammed into butterfree then quick attacked away before hitting it again, then repeated it multiple times before samurai could think of something.

"Confusion!"

Butterfree sent out a psychic force effectively sending pidgeotto flying to the ground

"Now sleep powder again" butterfree sent out the powder again

"Face up and gust!" pidgeotto once again sent the powder back once again but this time effectively caught butterfree in it.

Its eyes drooped and it started to fall out of the sky before it was hit with a red beam and returned it to its pokeball.

Samurai walked over to Ash and grabbed his sword before pulling out the money and handing it over to Ash who put it in his overstuffed wallet.

"Big pay day for me, how's your wallet feeling?" Ash mocked with a smirk, this guy was a jerk, a little humility might help him

Samurai just scowled, turned on his heel and left as Ash stroked pidgeotto's crest and congratulated him, making pidgeotto puff up with pride and nuzzle Ash happily.

"Alright, lets get going, only a couple more days till Pewter"

"Wow" Ash said simply, he had taken a different path two days ago to make it out of the forest, those bug catchers were starting to get damn annoying! Now they were on a high cliff that overlooked Pewter city, it was probably about half the size of Viridian, greyer and slightly less impressive, but the view he saw from the cliff was magnificent.

"Alright guys, do you see the pokecenter from here?" Ash asked, pidgeotto quickly nodded, it was a predator and its eyesight and hearing had developed as such to spot small caterpie and weedle from high in the sky, picking out a large, red roofed building was child's play to her. "Think you can lead me there?" another nod as pidgeotto took off, first finding a slope for Ash to walk down then leading him through the city to the front door before landing on his shoulder, once again almost knocking him over, 'I'm going to have to get used to this' Ash thought regaining his balance and walking through the doors.

'HOLY CRAP! Oak wasn't lying?!' Ash mentally yelled to himself as he looked forward at the smiling pink haired nurse

"Good afternoon, how may I help you?" Asked the nurse in a friendly tone

"Just a room and a check up for my pokemon please" Ash replied while pointing to pidgeotto and jolteon.

"Pokedex or trainers license?" Ash handed over his pokedex, she quickly inserted it into a slot before it popped back out and she handed it back to him.

"Alright, room 15 down the hall, and lets go pidgeotto and jolteon" the nurse said smiling warmly at the pokemon.

This time jolteon didn't put up a fight but still stared at Ash until he was out of eyesight again.

Ash once again dropped his bag off in his room that had the standard bathroom, single bed and desk, before heading back and waiting in the lobby where he was tackled and licked to death by jolteon

"They're a little worn out, but you must have just come through Viridian Forest I'm guessing. A good nights rest and they should be at 100% again!" Nurse Joy said giggling at Ash and jolteon, while pidgeotto lazily flew over to Ash's chair and stood on the back shaking its head, but had what looked like a smile on, but it's hard to tell because of the beak.

"Thanks nurse Joy" Ash replied, once Jolteon had settled down a bit.

"Lets go to the room guys, you stink, I think its bath time"

Jolteon let out a happy yip and sprinted down the hall while pidgeotto gave a confused look.

Almost an hour later and the trio were all clean, Pidgeotto found out she absolutely loved bathing, being clean, having her feathers looking pristine and smelling nice made her very happy. Jolteon couldn't care less about the smell, but he was always happy to have nice clean fur.

Ash and jolteon gave happy sighs as they lay in the bed in their room and pidgeotto roosted on the wooden bed frame.

"Tomorrow is a rest day, then two days is some light training, THEN, its time for our us to get our first badge" Ash said smiling, he received a happy growl and chirp in response.

He gave a quick stroke to pidgeottos crest and a scratch under jolteons chin before saying goodnight to them curling up with jolteon.

**AN: Pokemon suggestions are welcome. I have most, but send me a pm or a review with two pokemon if you want, ill go with the fan favorites. Since johto and kanto are neighbors some johto pokemon may migrate through or find their way to kanto. And pokemon like magby and elekid can be found wherever magmar and electabuzz are.**


	2. Chapter 2

AN: thanks for the reviews and all the follows everybody, just to clear something up, pidgeotto is female if I confused anyone by accident. On to the next chapter and as always I don't own pokemon.

8 am came and Ash's alarm went off, waking up the inhabitants of the pokemon center room

An hour later, Ash, jolteon and pidgeotto were walking through the front lobby to head out the pokemon center doors when Ash saw something out of the corner of his eye that made him freeze and a feeling of dread spread through him

'Oh… Shit. I forgot to call mom and the professor! I've already been gone for about 3 weeks!'

Jolteon seemed to figure out what was wrong after Ash had been staring at the phones for a minute or two and wanted to see how bad his best friend would be in trouble as he bit on Ash's pant leg and started pulling him to the phones

"Jolteon! Please no! I swear I'll do it later! Jolteon please! You know how mad she'll be!" Ash kept yelling until jolteon had pulled right next to the seat, while pidgeotto just sat on Ash's shoulder confused about the whole thing

Once Ash had sat down jolteon had explained what the phones were for and what was about to happen as pidgeotto snickered in Ash's ear

"Ya, ya laugh it up you two, thanks for showing some concern for my health"

His only response was louder laughter but pidgeotto did nuzzle him showing her support

"Might as well do the easier one first," Ash stated, dialing the number to Oaks lab

Ash sat back and waited for someone at the lab to pick up, he lucked out when one of the assistant professors answered

"Oh, hey Ash! How's it going?" asked the man

"Pretty amazing Gerald! How are things at the lab?"

"Harder now that our little assistant went missing" Gerald responded with a smirk

"Is the professor mad?" Ash asked with slight fear in his voice

"Not going to sugar coat it for you, he's pretty peeved, but not as bad as your mom, she's called everyday for the past two weeks, make sure you call her. The prof is actually out on route 1 right now, I'll let him know you called and everything is fine though"

"Thanks man! Talk to you later" Ash said with a wave as he hung up the video phone

"Well that went much better than expected" Ash said with a smile, until he remembered the next call he had to make

"Better sooner than later I guess" as Ash dialed the number to his house

A few rings later the video screen blinked to life and there was the smiling face of his mother, that smiled soon turned into a deep frown when she saw who was calling, but there was definitely relief as a load had been taken off her shoulders

"Hey mom" Ash said with a gulp

"Three weeks Ash. Three weeks not knowing where you were, what you were doing or if you were even alive" Delia stated slowing getting louder and louder "and all you have to say is 'Hey mom?!"

"Heheheh" A awkward chuckle was all Ash could respond before she continued to ream him out for a couple minutes while pidgeotto and jolteon struggled to suppress their laughing at Ash.

"Now put jolteon on the phone please"

That sentence from Delia immediately cut jolteon laughing short and he adorned a look of fear and anxiety, which made pidgeotto laugh even louder, as jolteon hopped up and sat on Ash's lap

"You are just as responsible mister, I know for a fact you walked by every phone Ash did and you didn't once say anything huh?"

Jolteon just looked ashamed at the ground, after living with him for a year, Delia had taken to treating jolteon almost exactly like she treated ash, although a few licks and cuddles could get jolteon out of most sticky situations at home, he couldn't do it over the phone

Jolteon got a verbal for a minute or two before delia had calmed down

"Now that that's over, I see we have a new family member" Delia observed while looking at pidgeotto who was perched on the back of the chair still chirping loudly with laughter thinking of Ash and jolteons faces while they were yelled at, but was able to settle down when she saw Delia staring at her

"Yup!" Ash said with a big smile "mom, this is pidgeotto, pidgeotto, this is mom, say hi girl!"

Pidgeotto let out a chirp and dipped her head to Delia

"Hello to you too" Delia said with a smile "so tell me about your journey so far honey"

So after talking for about twenty minutes Ash and his crew finally headed out of the pokemon center and made it to the outskirts of town where they found a large open space to train in.

"Alright guys, I changed up the schedule a little bit, we're probably going to have to stay a little longer before our gym challenge, which I should probably go schedule after this, pidgeotto you will be learning steel wing and speed, and jolteon you just work on speed, this is a rock type gym, so your electric attacks wont be very effective here, we're just going to go for lots of hit and run tactics, sound good?"

The pokemon yipped and chirped in response

Pulling out the rope from his bag, Ash found two medium sized flat rocks and tied the ropes around them, but made a large loop so pidgeotto's wings could fit through, and slipped them onto her. "Alright, lift them up and down until I say stop" Ash told her

"Sprints" was all Ash had to say before jolteon took off.

Ash practiced his martial arts while they trained

After a bit they changed, Ash and jolteon went for a jog while pidgeotto flew above him with the rocks still attached

'This is good for pidgeotto, not only will it strengthen her wing muscles to easier use steel wing and make her wings even harder, its going to help her endurance and speed to with the added weight.

Just before supper they packed up their stuff and headed back into the city. Gyms were a huge attraction, not only for trainers, but they could also supply a starter pokemon for some trainers and many gyms sold season or day passes to watch the scheduled gym battles, they also aided the police sometimes in protecting the city from wild pokemon or the notorious Team Rocket. The gym was located only a few blocks from the gym so trainers could easily make it back to the center if they're pokemon were injured. He returned pidgeotto to her pokeball and stood in front of the gym with jolteon and looked up. Taking a second and just marveled at the huge structure in front of him, this place took up almost a full block on it's own!

Pushing through the huge double doors Ash walked through the lobby to the front desk where he saw a young woman working

"Good evening, I'm here to schedule a gym battle" Ash told the receptionist

"And when were you hoping to challenge?" She replied

"Hopefully there's an open spot in four days?" Ash asked as polite as possible

"In four days I have one open spot at 10:30"

"Sounds good" Ash answered as he handed her his pokedex so she could register him

After scheduling the battle he went back to his room and released pidgeotto before laying in bed and falling asleep

After two days of the same type of training as the first day, Ash had jolteon practice his double kick, pin missile and his electrical attacks, with some speed training thrown in for the next two days, while pidgeotto started trying steel wing, it was hard at first, it took awhile for pidgeotto to channel her energy to her wings to make them very hard, she was used to sending to the joints so she could flap her wings faster for quick attack, now her energy had to encompass the whole wing. But at about noon the fourth day she had made great progress and could do it on command, and hold it for awhile and Ash made a new combo move specifically for this gym, which only took an hour or two to learn, so they spent the rest of the day resting up for the gym battle

Ash and the gang were once again up at eight before they did their morning routine and eating in the pokecenter cafeteria. They went outside where all three went for a light jog/fly and stretch to warm up before going over the game plan against the gym leader Brock and returning both pokemon to their pokeballs and walking to the gym, Ash always felt bad putting jolteon in his ball, but he didn't want brock to know either of his pokemon, and jolteon was a nice surprise, since brock would only see his basic info, he would think he's just another beginner trainer.

Once again Ash walked through the gym doors and headed to the front desk where he checked in with the same receptionist from last time before finding an empty spot in the lobby waiting to be called.

'Holy man looking at these kids' Ash thought as he looked at the couple other trainers waiting 'they look nervous as hell, I think that one kid is going to pass out from sweating so hard. Regardless of those kids I feel pretty confident, I should have a good chance at this, Brock will probably see I have zero badges and just started so he'll use his weakest team, but it definitely won't be easy'

"Ash Ketchum you're up" the receptionist called out

Ash gave her a nod in thanks before walking down the hallway she pointed to. He walked about thirty feet before a huge metal door that must have been 20 feet wide and thirty feet tall blocked his way.

"Now what?" Ash asked jolteon, who seemed just as confused. A low rumble from the door caught his attention though, as it was raised into the roof and Ash got his first look at the gym.

It was easy to tell why the gym almost took up an entire block, there were still other facilities in the gym but the battlefield was humongous!

The field was probably about 150 feet long and 75 wide. And that was just the field, the bleachers on either side could hold about 500 people, they were protected by the psychic pokemon employed by every gym. Most had a few mr. mimes who built up layers of reflects and protects to shield the audience from harm as well as the trainers battling.

Ash was cut away from his ogling by a voice on the otherside of the field

"Ash Ketchum, I'm Brock, Pewter City gym leader, this will be a 2 on 2 battle, once both pokemon of a trainer are knocked out, that trainer loses, are you ready to battle?" Ash heard from the other side of the field, he must have been wearing a earpiece, cause Ash could hear him clearly, before ash noticed he had speakers in his booth

Brock was a pretty big guy, standing at what Ash assumed was 6'4 and looking quite built, only wearing long pants, and leaving his muscled torso open, yet another attempt by another trainer to intimidate him, but Ash didn't mind this one, he wasn't trying to pick on trainers, only test them.

Locking eyes from across the field Ash only gave a nod before enlarging a pokeball in his, brock mirrored his movements, and they both tossed at the same time.

Two flashes of light erupted from the field and the forms of pidgeotto and what Ash recognized as a geodude formed.

The crowd started cheering and the announcer started talking very loudly, but Ash tuned them out quickly, focusing on the field and his opponent.

Ash looked the geodude up and down, it was a decent size, not even close to brock's full power, must be a close to new catch, that means his second pokemon will probably be the same, would probably be classified as his 'C' team. C was for new trainers, B for intermediate and A for experienced.

Both trainers daring eachother to make the first move.

Finally Brock gave in.

"Rock throw!" he called out

Geodude hit the ground around him, breaking softball sized pieces from it, he then began to hurl them at pidgeotto, who started to dodge

Ash had trained his pokemon to dodge without command

This went on for a minute before geodude ran out of rocks

"Again!" Brock called

but Ash decided that was enough, "Quick wing!"

Brock looked on, seemingly unconcerned, he had been impressed with pidgeotto's dodging skills, and that this Ash fellow had an evolved non bug pokemon this early in his journey

Geodude starting to hammer the ground again, but was interrupted as he looked up and saw a bright metallic blur head for him, but he was to late to move and took the attack head on, knocking him into the ground and kicking up some dust

"now hammer him with gusts while he's stuck in the ground!"

The gust blew away the dust, and you could see geodude attempting to pull himself from the ground. Only his lower half was in the ground but after the super effective quick attack powered steel wing, and constantly being pushed down, he was struggling.

Finally pulling himself from the hole he quickly rolled away, although seemingly putting a lot of effort into

"Quick wing for the finish" Ash called, and pidgeotto was off like a rocket

"Smackdown!"

geodude jumped up and brought a flat hand down smacking pidgeotto to the ground

"On your way down magnitude!" geodude followed orders, but since he hadn't jumped very high, the magnitude wasn't as powerful as it could be, but still hurt pidgeotto.

She slowly got to her feet and glared defiantly at geodude

"Back into the air!" pidgeotto flew back up and circled geodude from above while Ash tried to come up a plan. After a few seconds he thought of one

"Now quick wing again!" Brock raised an eyebrow, he wasn't sure if it was a trap, or he thought he could get lucky and hit geodude, he decided he wanted to see if it was all a plan

"Smackdown again!"

"Flip on your back and block with your right wing!"

Geodude's palm came down at pidgeotto but she managed to hold her right steel wing in front of her, effectively blocking it

"Now left steel wing!" pidgeotto hit geodude in the air with her wing

"Now loop up and come down with quick wing!" geodude was still flailing in the air when pidgeotto nose dived down and smoked him with a quick wing sending him hurtling into the ground.

Brock called back geodude without even waiting for the referee to call the end, he knew that was it, a gym aid came and collected the pokeball from Brock before rushing off, Ash was guessing to the first aid area of the gym.

"That caught me off guard Ash, very nice strategy. But I think you'll have some trouble with my next pokemon, let's go onix!"

Pidgeotto slightly paled as the giant rock snake appeared in front of them

"That's enough for today pidgeotto come on back"

Pidgeotto flew to Ash and gave an appreciative nuzzle and landed next to him, she finally realized she was a bit to big for his shoulder already

"Let's go, Jolteon!"

Brock's eyebrows once again shot up in surprise, who knew this kid would have two evolved pokemon!

Jolteon pawed the ground intently waiting for Ash's command. Onix seemed to be sizing him up,

"Tackle!"

"agility" Ash responded quickly

Onix brought his head down but jolteon was already gone, it frantically searched but could only catch glimpses of the lightning pokemon around him, it let out a loud frustrated roar

"hit him with earthquake to stop him!" onix raised its tail and starting to bring it down

"Jump at onix and double kick!" Jolteon was just able to get off the ground as onix slammed it, rumbling the whole battlefield, the let out a agonized roar as jolteon hit him with his back legs and pushed off before crouching back on the ground glaring at the rock snake, which onix was happy to return

"Rock tomb" onix swished his tail and sent tons of rocks at jolteon

"Agility to dodge!" jolteons agility was significantly slower though as he had to try and dodge the rocks trying to trap him

Jolteon was almost in the clear, before he was hit in the foot, making him stubble, he was then clocked in the side with one of the last stones and knocked to the ground

Valiantly he got up though before starting agility again

"Double kick again" before brock could order onix he was once again hit in one of his middle rocks

onix roared again but still looked ready for more

"Bind him" onix sweeped at him with his tail"

"Land on top of it" jolteon jumped and held on to the top of the tail wrapping his legs around onix, not allowing onix to curl the rest of his tail around him.

Brock seemed to smirk

"Slam him"

Onix lifted his tail quickly and brock looked over at Ash with a victorious grin, but he saw Ash with a huge smirk plastered on his face, confusing brock

As onix brought his tail to the highest point Ash gave his next order

"Let go"

That confused brock even more as he saw jolteon let go and start to fly through the air, but it was directed at onixs head

"Now double kick" Jolteon turned his back legs and powered up the move before he gave a mighty kick to onix right between the eyes, then pushed off and hit the ground in front of Ash, not even bothering to look back at onix

No roar came, just an intensely loud thump as onix hit the ground.

Brock stood, mouth agape, he had seriously underestimated this kid, his A-team could have dismantled Ash easy, but he had seriously outclassed and battled his C-team which was a serious achievement for a beginner.

Returning onix and giving the pokeball to a gym aid who sprinted out once again, Brock turned his mic back on

"Meet me in the middle" was all he said before turning it back off

Ash looked surprised but did as told

Brock was even more imposing close up, being well over a foot taller than Ash, but the large smile on his face made any scared feelings Ash may have had disappear

Brock extended a large calloused hand to Ash, a gesture Ash returned and they shook

"That was one of the funnest battles I've had in a long time Ash, you showed some true potential out there, by the way, how do you have a jolteon so early in your journey?"

"Me and him have been pals for close to a year, but it's a really long story how, if we meet up again and you have some time, I might tell you then" Ash said with a small laugh

"Oh ya, I have another battle right now! Good luck on the rest of your journey Ash, I see some great things in your future, and for your victory, I grant you the boulderbadge" Brock replied as he took a small coal shaped badge from his pocket and handed it to Ash

"Thanks a lot Brock, I'll see you sometime again hopefully!" Ash said as he turned and walked out, while Brock just nodded and went back to his battlefield.

Heading back to the pokemon center Ash handed over pidgeottos pokeball and jolteon once again reluctantly followed after her, while Ash just plopped down on one of the couch's and watched as people came and went from the center before deciding to call his Professor Oak and his mother, they were both ecstatic for him, Oak especially since he was his pupil for awhile, and told them his plan to start heading for mount moon the next day, knowing it would take awhile, his mom gave a lengthy goodbye and a goodluck from both before getting off the phone.

It had been about an hour and a half at that point, so he went back to the lobby, and very soon his face was plastered with licks from jolteon.

Thanking Nurse Joy he made his way to the room where he let out pidgeotto, and bathed and groomed them and himself before settling in for bed.

The next morning the gang was up early before they left the room, handed Nurse Joy his key, and set off for the east exit of the city and Mount Moon.

It was a good thing that pokemon centers were always located near the perimeters, so any travelling trainer with an emergency could make it with minimal problems, so it only took about 25 minutes for him to be on the road to mount moon.

The next few days were filled with travelling and battles. There wasn't much training since, he spent most of the time beating all the beginner trainers who hung around pewter, most of whom were training to beat brock, although he did run into one man with a golem that beat him, that was quite the experienced trainer, nice guy to, didn't even take any of the betted money because he saw Ash was a beginner.

The farther he went though, the scarcer the trainers were, so he started back up training his pokemon

A few days of training and travelling later he had made it to the pokemon center at the base of the mountain, where he got a room and sent pidgeotto and jolteon in for a check up.

The next morning the trio made their way into the mountain. Most trainers walked alongside the vehicle road the went about halfway up and around it, but Ash felt particularly adventurous, plus he might be able to catch a good rock pokemon, he wasn't quite up to the task of an onix yet, but maybe a geodude or rhyhorn would be a good addition, he was setting up a speed team, but he may need a wall or two to help balance out, and a golem or rhyperior would certainly fit the bill

Most stayed out of mount moon, between the myths of people going missing, the mysterious clefairy and the fact that onix tunnels looked a lot like the main path and could lead to being lost, it kept most people at bay, except for the hikers who frequented the place, catching rock pokemon and trying to map out the incredibly confusing tunnels of the mountain.

Passing the large entrance, Ash returned pidgeotto to her ball, until he came to a larger cavern, pidgeotto was only a burden., so walking along with jolteon he continued on into the cave. Most caves you needed to teach a pokemon a move called flash, but mount moon was a special mountain in this range that slightly divided kanto, it was slightly open at the top like a volcano, some believed a giant moonstone was the cause of the hole, others believed mount moon used to actually be a volcano, if anyone had ever seen the moon stone, they sure didn't want to talk about though.

Ash continued on for a few hours, being particularly careful around the rocks on the sides of the paths, you never know when a geodude or graveler was just camouflaging itself for sleep. The tunnel soon opened up into a large cavern though, and Ash could see a few camps set up with the infamous mount moon hikers lounging about; this first cavern must be some sort of base camp for them. Ash was seriously considering setting up camp with them for the night and training, but after getting some heated glares by some hikers who seemed particularly engrossed with drawing a map, he decided to move on, training wasn't a good idea with loose papers sitting around everywhere. Before he left though, he heard one what seemed like a cell phone talking frantically.

Continuing down the path, Ash knew it would take him a day or two to get out, depending on if he caught a pokemon or trained, that's when the headache started. Zubats. God, how he loathed zubats. There was about a billion of them, and wild ones were known for sucking human and pokemon blood, although tamed ones would switch to pokemon food, it was still pretty freaky. There supersonic wasn't audible to humans unless it was within a few feet, but it still affected your ear canals and brain, causing a headache.

Jolteon felt and probably heard it to Ash noticed, as he seemed to have a pained expression, even though he tried to stay straight faced.

As he walked the worse the pain got, something was definitely distressing them, or else they wouldn't all be doing the same thing. Panicking.

At a particularly horrible point, Ash returned jolteon after asking which direction it came from, the dog nodded his head to a corridor Ash probably would have missed if it hadn't been pointed out, it was well camouflaged, like someone had tried to cover it. Jolteon had tried to insist he was fine, but his large ears made his hearing incredibly good, went back into the ball after a minute of debate. Ash plugged his ears, which slightly helped, but didn't completely cut off his headache. Taking the pointed out path Ash walked for abit, his headache slowly returning to full force the tunnel suddenly took a sharp right and Ash peeked around the corner, what he saw boiled his blood.

There were about ten men there, all dressed in complete black except for the giant red R across the front of the sweaters they wore. 'Team Rocket' Ash seethed, everyone knew about Team Rocket and their crimes, they were quite notorious and graced the evening news quite a bit, whether a small theft from a grunt or stealing pokemon to break and force to work for them. They were all wearing headphones though, must be blocking the supersonics from the zubats, speaking of which, Ash was staring at the large metal box in the corner, the thing was huge! Out of the medium sized, barred window Ash could see a flurrying of wings and blue bodies behind them, that must be where all the zubats were being held. 'That must be why no one came around here, most people turned around once they realized they were getting intense headaches they would turn around, and any pokemon did the same, they were left all alone to do… to do something' Ash thought as he continued to watch, that's when he saw a green haired and eyed man grab a couple grunts and point somewhere on a map before handing them a couple pokeballs each, the two grunts split from the remaining eight who were still huddled around tables, they picked up what looked like mining gear and started to head right towards him!

'Crap crap crap' Ash mentally yelled and backtracked the way he came for awhile before finding a small crevice he kneeled in, and just in time to because he saw the grunts turn the corner

'This is where training comes in' Ash tensed up and got in a kneeling position as his blood began pumping and adrenaline rushed through his veins as the rockets came closer. They finally passed his hiding spot and Ash sprang at them.

He cocked his arm back and delivered a devastating right hook to the surprised grunts chin, which dropped him almost instantly, the other grunt looked seriously surprised, letting Ash take him to the ground, then stretched his arm out, and put his legs over the grunts body in an effective arm bar. The grunt yelled in pain as Ash slowly pushed his hips up, bending the arm into a very painful angle, just before it would get to its breaking point, the grunt screamed even louder.

"What's Team Rocket doing in Mount Moon?!" Ash shouted but the grunt continued to scream

'Shit, his headphones are still on' Ash let go of the mans arm and kicked the headphones off as the grunt rolled away from Ash while simultaneously releasing the two pokemon from the pokeballs he had been given, a Raticate and ekans formed from the bright lights, both hissing loudly

Ash clicked open his own pokeball and jolteon formed and growled loudly as it realized it was in a fight.

The ekans and raticate looked quite ragged Ash noticed, dull, matted fur and bags under their eyes, when raticate stood on its hind legs to look more intimidating he could have sworn he seen some ribs poking out.

They were not well taken care of, and seemed to glare at the rocket every couple seconds.

"Attack!" the grunt yelled, and the raticate and ekans charged jolteon, Ash skirted the outside of the battle and went at the grunt, who Ash soon realized wasn't trained for close combat for that long, he may have been able to take out any regular civilian, but Ash was trained, so ducking under a right hook, Ash came up with a knee to the stomach and then flipped him over his back making the grunt land on his stomach, he then wrenched his arm behind his back in a cop hold.

By this time jolteon had knocked out both his pokemon and trotted over to Ash

"Now then where were we, right, what's Team Rocket doing in mount moon?"

"Fuck you kid" the grunt replied through gritted teeth

"Wrong answer" Ash raised the grunts arm up farther making him scream in pain

"Alright, alright I'll tell you! Not like you can stop us all anyway. The moon stone, were looking for the original moon stone so we can try and harness its power."

"Thanks!" Ash said back with a slightly crazed smile, before slamming the grunts head into the ground knocking him out.

"I forgot how fun kicking bad guys asses can be" Ash told jolteon, receiving a yip and nod in response. Ash returned the defeated pokemon to the pokeballs, shrunk them and put them in a pocket in his bag.

"Now lets go see what we can do to the rest" Jolteon just nodded his head and followed. But not before Ash let pidgeotto out of her ball, making sure to do it in his hiding spot so the light wouldn't make any rockets suspicious. It was a good thing they had those headphones on to, or they definitely would've been suspicious.

Ash came up with a plan quickly, having jolteon dig at the ground a bunch, Ash helped with his hands, a large pile of dirt and pebbles soon formed. Ash whispered something to jolteon then pointed at a group of four grunts all standing at a table crouched close together looking at a map. On Ash's signal pidgeotto used gust on the pile, creating a dirt storm which was launched into the cavern, all the grunts looked up only to be temporarily blinded as dirt flew in their eyes

"Now jolteon!" The three stepped into the cavern and jolteon fur erupted with a blue lightning that spread out and hit the four grunts who were previously pointed out, the thunder wave quickly hit them, paralyzing them temporarily. Most pokemon would only be paralyzed for a few seconds but their bodies were much tougher and adapted to fighting for survival, humans could be paralyzed for a few hours though.

Ash then sprinted to the closest grunt who still had his eyes closed and was shielding them with his hand, Ash delivered a devastating superman punch, which made the grunt stumble, before a knee to the face, knocking him out.

By now though the dirt had settled and Ash noticed two of the remaining three grunts release their pokemon, which confused Ash, looking behind them he saw the green haired and eyed 'grunt' standing behind them with a smile on, but this wasn't a nice one, it made Ash's stomach drop and he shuddered a bit as they caught eyes, this wasn't an ordinary grunt, this guy looked dangerous and scary as hell.

Jolteon and pidgeotto quickly dispatched the grunts pokemon

'these guys would be a force if they actually trained and took care of their pokemon, but they are pretty pitiful. I guess most successful trainers don't join an evil organization'

Jolteon once again paralyzed the two grunts with a thunder wave. After which they heard clapping, Ash had almost forgotten about the last guy.

"Quite impressive, you could rise the ranks in Team Rocket quickly young man. Let me introduce myself, my name is Executive Proton. Was this some sort of try out? Are you trying to impress me enough to allow you membership to Team Rocket?"

"Like I would join you. I don't know what you want with the moon stone, but I know it wont be good, so simply, I'm here to stop you.

At this Proton laughed loudly

"You? A mere child come to stop me? You think I was just give an executive position, without working and training for years? You have guts, but it seems your brain isn't all there"

"Enough talking grasshead, lets battle"

"Your funeral" Proton replied back smoothly while releasing two pokemon to match Ash's.

A golbat and weezing formed

'Oh crap, these pokemon don't look neglected and weak at all'

"pidgeotto take golbat to the air, use your speed, jolteon you have weezing, keep your distance and launch electric attacks" jolteon and pidgeotto nodded that they heard before they engaged in battle

Ash fixed his eyes on and crept closer to him. Proton just stood with a large grin plastered on. Ash finally feinted a left jab and came over for a right straight. Proton didn't even flinch at the feint and caught Ash's right hand, before twisting it behind his back and giving him a kick in the ass, make Ash stumble away and fall to the floor, Ash heard a thump beside him and pidgeotto hit the ground, looking very wounded with two large teeth marks in his wing. Ash quickly got up and returned pidgeotto, just in time to see weezing release a jet of sludge knocking down jolteon.

'Shit, this isn't going good'

Ash's thoughts were cut off by Archers voice "time for the best part" he said in a slightly sadistic voice "now golbat"

A blood chilling scream cut the air as Ash felt a searing pain in his side.

Looking down golbat had his teeth sunk into his sides.

'Im feeling so light headed suddenly. Oh shit! He must be sucking my blood! I freaking hate bat pokemon.' Ash thought as he desperately lashed out at the golbat, but it wasn't releasing him anytime soon.

The light seemed to fade and all his peripheral vision was already black

A million thoughts ran through his head, of his mom, his pokemon and the professor

Suddenly Ash saw something huge burst through the ground and some yelling before he felt the teeth slide out of him. That's when everything went black.

"Ugghhhhhh" a groan cut through the air, accompanied by a steady beeping noise.

Ash opened his eyes to see a chansey staring at him before sprinting out of the room

'Weird' Ash thought as he looked around the room 'heart monitor, white walls, in a hospital gown, yup, definitely in a hospital and not dead'

the door opened suddenly and jolteon and pidgeotto were nuzzling the hell out of him in no time flat with a giggling Nurse Joy standing in the doorway

"How are you feeling?" she asked in a motherly voice

"Fine, except did you get the license plate of that truck that hit me?" he croaked out, which caused another giggle out of the Nurse.

"Well you've been out for about two days, jolteon and pidgeotto are almost fully healed, jolteon wasn't to bad, but the golbat bites in pidgeotto were, but they've already sealed up"

A man came through the door suddenly

"How's the hero?" He asked walking up to the bed

"Brock! Haha, im fine, why are you here? And uhhh where am I?"

This time Brock laughed

"You're at the pokemon center at the entrance of Mount Moon on the Pewter Side. I showed up and you had a golbat attached to you. It's a good thing the hikers told me some weird things were happening and convinced me to investigate, I was on the phone with one when I was riding on the back of my main onix. I got all the grunts you knocked out, but one got away. He returned the golbat and got away when his weezing used smog to hide himself. Once it cleared he was gone. I need a statement from you to send to the league if you're up for it?"

Ash nodded and told brock everything, from how he tried to see what was wrong with the zubat, to the rockets intentions, and that the man who got away was executive Archer. Once he mentioned that name though, Brock frowned deeper when the name was mentioned.

"Have you heard of him before?"

"I've seen him mentioned in reports, but never met him, guess that's changed now"

Ash just nodded "that's cool. By the way, there should be a few pokeballs in the side pocket that are rocket pokemon, I took off them"

"Thanks, I'll need to take them to rehabilitation" Brock answered nodding at Ash "Also the beautiful Nurse Joy has told me you'll be out tomorrow to continue your journey, with only two scars from the golbat, I know you said you'd see me soon, but hopefully we wont again this soon though, now if you'll excuse me, I have a Nurse Joy to sweep off her feet!" Ash swore he saw stars in Brocks eyes before he took off out of the room leaving Ash with his pokemon. Pidgeotto roosted on the headboard and jolteon curled up beside Ash, as he passed out. Not before he heard an audible smack, and nurse Joy telling herself thank god for Brocks geodude though.

Ash was discharged the next morning and once again began his journey through Mount Moon. It was slow going though, he couldn't move to fast as he didn't want the stitches on his side to open up.

He once again made his way into the hiker base camp, but this time stopped to thank them for sending Brock and saving his life. They all told him he was insane for doing what he did, but they did regard him with a new found respect for trying to protect the pokemon of the mountain they loved. That only took about an hour so Ash kept on his way. The rest of the day was uneventful travelling as he continued his way through the mountain. Around six oclock he walked through another large cavern and decided that he'd stay here. He let pidgeotto out to stretch her wings then laid out his sleeping back and food for both pokemon.

They all fell asleep quickly, regularly they would have kept going, but Ash's injury tired him out quickly and jolteon and pidgeotto were still tired from their fights.

They slept all night and got up at their regular time the next morning. Both pokemon looked completely refreshed though, Ash was always jealous of a pokemons ability to heal absurdly fast.

They continued on when the ground rumbled loudly underneath them, and they suddenly saw a rhyhorn sprinting at them from down the tunnel, it's face looked frantic, when suddenly a loud roar erupted from behind him an onix erupted from where the rhyhorn had been moments before.

"Double kick jolteon!" The onix hadn't registered Ash yet and was incredibly surprised when it was clocked in the face by the super effective attack.

"It roared in surprise then stared down Ash and jolteon before giving what looked like a nod and disappearing down the hole it just made.

Rhyhorn just stared at jolteon with a dumbfounded look on it's face

Ash and jolteon just stared back for a bit

"No time to battle jolteon, I want to make it our of here before sundown so we can make a camp" so they both turned away from the rhyhorn and continued down the path

As they walked rhyhorn just followed obediently like a lost puppy, Ash thought he would eventually take a tunnel off and return home but it just followed close behind.

They finally made it out of the mountain and to their surprise rhyhorn was still behind him.

"Rhyhorn, do you want to come with me on my journey?" Ash asked as he turned to look in his eyes

He saw confusion in them and Ash remembered Professor Oak telling him that wild rhyhorn weren't know for their brains, but tame ones could become intelligent with lots of training.

With a sigh Ash just lobbed a pokeball at him, and he was sucked in with a surprised look on his face.

He must have frozen up when he was hit because the ball didn't even shake and signified a capture.

"This may have been a bad idea" Ash stated as he released rhyhorn and it shook its head like a wet dog and confusion all over his face.

They set up camp and built a fire, rhyhorn walked into the mountain for about half an hour as everyone else ate, Ash didn't have any food for him, so he must've found something to eat.

Then Ash took the next couple hours to tell rhyhorn about his dream, gym leaders and his pokeball,, it took so long because he had to repeat himself what seemed like a million times before rhyhorn understood.

Ash looked up rhyhorn in his pokedex, got his moves, and possible moves and realized almost all were physical, he would have to think up a strategy for long range moves for rhyhorn.

Ash woke up the next morning with an announcement for his pokemon team. They were going to stay and train there for a few days. Ash had enough pokemon and human food to last, and rhyhorn could just go to mount moon.

Pidgeotto and jolteon did speed training while Ash got a demonstration in rhyhorns abilities

Ash got rhyhorn started learning bulldoze. Bulldoze was pretty much learing the varying levels of tremors to send out to knock the other pokemon off balance then hitting them, many of rhyhorns attacks were just hitting the opponent at varying levels of strength or in fury attacks case, the amount of times hit.

Surprisingly by the end of the day rhyhorn had the move mastered, not that it was hard, but it took 45 minutes to explain that he had been in a pokeball.

The next day Ash had them all doing power training. Rhyhorn was head butting trees while jolteon continually blasted rocks and pidgeotto followed rhyhorn doing the same, this was followed by accuracy.

Training went on for another four days, pidgeotto easily learned wing attack, which a lot like steel wing, just without making her wings as solid, and rhyhorn had started on stone edge, but it wasn't even close to perfect. The last day of the week was spent travelling. By the morning of day eight out of mount moon they were about two thirds of the way to cerulean. The whole day was spent battling trainers and slowly making their way to cerulean. Rhyhorn wasn't completely dumb in battle as Ash had suspected, most rock pokemon sent him off on a charge at them, but after his first miss or hit he would listen to Ash although it seemed like they would need to train in being calm first and charging second instead of the way it was now.

The closer to cerulean they got though, the more water pokemon they saw, lots of basic goldeen, horsea and poliwags, but some of their evolved forms gave them a run for their money, he was quite happy to have jolteon's type advantage, but even though he was now on the more wild east side of kanto, cerulean was another beginners gym so lots of first years were around.

After finding the pokemon center he handed over his pokedex then got his pokemon checked up, and a room for himself. He knew it was a water gym so Ash thought he had it in the bag with jolteon, but a few more battles and training never hurt.

After dropping his stuff off he sat in the lobby and waited for his team when he picked up of a conversation happening next to him between a couple trainers.

"I only got to number two again before three beat my pokemon to a pulp" one of the kids said seemingly depressed

"It must be a pretty nice prize if the five trainers were that tough!" the other responded

"Ya, they were real good. After I get my pokemon back why don't you try? I bet you'll make it farther!"

"Sounds good, so after this those nugget bridge trainers better watch out!" The second responded throwing a fist in the air.

Ash smirked, 'guess I know who I'm going to practice on now'

After Nurse Joy handed him back his pokeballs and releasing jolteon he told him the plan and jolteons fur hummed with electricity as you could visibly see him get excited for hopefully a good battle.

Jolteon stood beside him with a sad face as they faced the sixth person who was supposed to give him his prize. Those trainers must have been pretty horrible. They hadn't made it close to trainer five and he was the only one Ash actually had a little fun battling. Rhyhorn took the first two trianers out without breaking a sweat, both only had an ekans and a ratata. Both rattata looked at rhyhorn charging and turned tail running away for what they thought was their lives, and rhyhorns resistance to poison and normal type attacks made ekans pretty much ineffective.

Number three had an oddish and arbok, but pidgeotto and rhyhorn took care of both.

Number four had a pretty powerful looking poliwhirl but was dispatched easily by jolteon

Number five made Ash actually command pidgeotto and jolteon, as the trainer requested a double battle, which had been interesting, and a new experience, but they had defeated the opponents gloom and poliwhirl after a good fight.

The guy in front of him wore all black and Ash definitely had a bad feeling about this guy.

"Wow kid, that was pretty awesome, you barely broke a sweat, so here's your prize" the man told Ash handing over what looked like a small chunk of gold "that right there is worth almost 5 thousand pokedollars, you could buy a couple ultra balls for just it"

Ash looked down in amazement at it, ultra balls were extremely expensive, the league didn't want beginners going out thinking they could catch powerful pokemon and get themselves in damage just because they thought an ultra ball was almost a sure thing, let alone some kid with a ratata for protection whipping one of these at something like a nidoking, that was just a disaster waiting to happen, so the league made them quite expensive.

'No one just gives away something like this… There must be a catch' Ash was interrupted by the man clearing his throat 'alright, here it is'

"You know you're quite talented, if you trained with us you could rise the ranks and make one of those weekly"

Ash raised an eyebrow "if I train with these nugget bridge trainers I could make this?"

"No, you got it all wrong, I just found these kids and gave them some cash to come weed out bad trainers for me, they have no idea who I am. I meant Team Rocket"

Ash immediately through the nugget at the mans feet

"No way in hell"

"Come on kid, talent like yours doesn't come around everyday, we can help nurture it"

"Fuck that"

"Well you're the first to defeat everyone, and I can't risk everyone finding out who I am, so either come with me politely or by force" the grunt said releasing a koffing, ekans, and zubat"

Ash just shook his head "trainer fives pokemon are stronger than yours, after my pokemon kick yours asses, officer jenny will probably be quite happy to arrest a _rocket_" he said the last word with as much hate as possible.

Releasing his own three he turned to them "jolteon and pidgeotto, knock out his pokemon, rhyhorn you stand beside me, and protect me in case he tries something sneaky"

A few minutes later his pokemon defeated the grunt tried to attack Ash, but jolteon paralyzed him before he got close. Ash tied him up and threw him on rhyhorns back as they walked back to nugget bridge, but not before Ash picked up the nugget, then walking across it, informed each trainer of why they were recruited and they all looked disgusted at the tied up man. Ash ended up going through his pockets and found his wallet, which he used to pay each of the five their promised amount.

The trainer who he had double battled had a cell phone on him, so he called officer jenny for Ash and told her Ash would walk along the main road back to cerulean, and just stop the kid with the rhyhorn to get the future inmate.

About a quarter of the way back Ash met up with officer jenny, she took a statement from Ash and put the grunt who was still paralyzed in the back of the car before thanking Ash and moving down to nugget bridge to talk to the other five, who Ash assured her were innocent.

It was approaching the evening so Ash headed back to the pokemon center, where he and his pokemon ate then passed out soon after, the soft beds were so much more comforting than a sleeping bag on the ground.

The next morning Ash walked up to the lobby counter

"Hey Nurse Joy! I was wondering if there were any places I should see before I challenge the gym and move on? Anything super special around here?" Ash was interested, he was kicking himself for forgetting about pewter cities huge museum, he really wanted to see the pokemon fossil and skeletons!

"Well for couples, cerulean cape at sunset is especially romantic" Nurse Joy said getting all starry eyed "but you're probably not interested in that" she continued, turning back to normal "but the cape is also good if you want to catch a water pokemon, lots of poliwag or horsea" 'I do need a water pokemon, but I really wanted to find the official starters before I got another of the same type' "pretty far north is bills house also, he probably has some rare pokemon you could scan and cross off your pokedex, there's also cerulean cave to the northwest, but that place is guarded by league officials until you have eight badges, lots of strong pokemon live there."

"May as well go check out Bill's house then! Thanks Nurse Joy!" Ash called out

When Nurse Joy said it was far north, he didn't expect this far! He had passed nugget bridge almost six hours ago! He finally came over a particularly large hill when he saw a large house against cerulean river that fed into the cape.

'Nice place' Ash thought as he walked up and knocked on the door. Strangely enough a rattata opened up the door, and seemed extremely excited, it grabbed Ash by his ankle and quickly pulled him inside. Something was off about the rat pokemon though, its facial features seemed extremely human like.

"Whoa! Slow down there lil buddy, what's the rush!" it didn't respond though, just kept dragging Ash to what looked like a computer, once in front it stopped then hopped up on the desk and pointed at the screen

"transport ready, engage? Yes or no" Ash read aloud from the screen.

The rattata pointed at yes, then made a one second motion before running over to one of two large pod looking devices. It hopped in the right one and closed the door behind it.

Ash just looked confused, but pressed yes

An extremely loud whirring noise took over the room and the two pods lit up in extremely bright white light for a few seconds, before a bunch of steam rolled off the pods and the light died down along with the sound. Then the left pod opened up and an average sized man with short curly hair stepped out with a large smile on his face

"Thank arceus!" he cried out loud before walking over to the right pod and opening it, a rattata clambered out and sprinted out the still open front door

"I was so sick of that body, you have no idea how long I've been like that, by the way I'm Bill" He said sticking his hand out to Ash, who took it in a firm shake

"Ash Ketchum sir" he replied

"Oh Ash eh, Professor Oak has told me great things about you, you're the one with the jolteon right?

"That's me" Ash said happily, jolteon had gotten bored during the walk so Ash had returned him to his ball

"What brings you around here?" He asked Ash

"Well I was talking to Nurse Joy and she said you have quite the rare pokemon collection and I kinda wanted to stop by and check them out, and she said you were just north of cerulean" 'Just north my ass' Ash thought to himself"

"I sure do why don't you follow me out back" Bill replied, leading the way through his house to the back door he opened and they both stepped out

"Wow" was all Ash got out, it looked a lot like professor Oaks ranch only with rarer pokemon, and quite a few from other regions, he saw clefairy dancing about, a huge charizard and dragonite flew around, the charizard seemed like it was extremely mad about something and was trying to take it out on the dragonite though, and what he remembered was a milotic stared at him and bill from the pond before disappearing back under water.

"Ya, quite the sight eh"

"No kidding" Ash said, still in disbelief, before he took his pokedex out and scanned a bunch

"I do have a problem though"

"Whats the problem Bill?"

"My charizard up there, she's been extremely aggressive lately and completely angry at everything"

"Why's that?"

"Have you ever heard of a shiny pokemon Ash?" He asked and received a head nod from Ash "Well she just laid an egg, and her hatchling came out the golden of a shiny charmander, and I don't know how much you know of charizard behavior, but most pokemon or humans outside their pack they don't associate with, or if anyone deviates from them they leave them, and I'm very sad to say, she's been neglecting her son"

"That's horrible!"

"It sure is, would you like to meet the baby?"

"That sounds great"

Bill brought him inside and down the east wing to a door with the word nursery above it and walked inside

Sitting inside the room playing with a small charmander plush was the golden charmander who looked up as he heard the visitors, squealing in delight he ran to Bill and hugged his leg before shying behind his legs and staring up at Ash apprehensively

Ash sat cross legged on the floor and looked at charmander "Its alright, I'm not going to hurt you"

Charmander looked up at bill who nodded in confirmation before stepping out from behind his legs and walking up to Ash

Ash slowly reached out and pet his head slowly, charmander leaned into the touch and before long charmander was full on in Ash's lap, getting scratched, tickled and pet while squealing in delight. Bill watched on with a warm smile on his face

"its getting quite late Ash, I highly doubt you will make it back to the center by sundown, why not stay here with charmander for the night" Bill asked Ash and pointed at the bed in corner of the room

"That would be great Bill, thanks! Do you mind if I let my pokemon out?"

"Not at all Ash"

Ash let his three pokemon out; he felt fine letting rhyhorn out, since it was quite a large room

Charmander immediately buried his face in Ash's shirt and gripped him tightly

"It's alright charmander these are my friends" Ash just pet him lightly to soothe him, and then introduced each one.

The rest of the night charmander grew very attached to each and played the whole time, but he was always as close as possible to Ash.

When Ash woke up in the morning, charmander was curled up on his chest, jolteon tucked between his body and right arm, with pidgeotto on the headboard and rhyhorn laying on the ground right beside the bed. Ash didn't notice Bill in the doorway smiling fondly at the scene before leaving

"Alright guys, time to get up, we gotta leave soon so we can train"

The pokemon got up groggily and moved off of Ash, when they all smelt something delicious

Walking out of the room into the dining room was a huge assortment of human and pokemon food and Bill chuckling lightly at their dumbfounded faces and the fact charmander had made himself a home on Ash's head. Bill guessed that after a month of traveling you don't see to many home cooked meals.

"Dig in"

That was all they needed to hear as they ran into the room Ash was about to stuff his mouth when he was given a bottle of milk in his hand from Bill

"Charmander just hatched a couple days ago, he can't eat solids for another week"

Ash sent a longing look to the food, before taking charmander off his head and cradled him as he handed him the bottle and helped hold it up

After charmander gave a satisfied burp that brought a laugh from Ash, he put charmander back on his head, grabbed a plate and loaded it up before digging into his own meal.

As they packed up and walked to the front door charmander had still refused to leave Ash's head.

"Ash I just found out the best way to repay you for helping me" Bill said happily

"It was really no big deal Bill, I was only helping, no need to feel like you owe me"

"No, no, no that won't do" he switched his look to charmander "How would you like to go with Ash?" He was immediately responded by a loud and happy yell from charmander who hugged onto Ash tightly

"Will you take him Ash?"

Ash was dumbfounded, shiny pokemon were incredibly rare to just be given one was unheard of, but he had become a kind of attached to the little guy

"But Bill, I cant just take charmander"

"Indeed you can, I don't have the time and with charizard neglecting him, he's not going to get the attention he need, you'd actually be doing me a favor"

"Thanks so much Bill" Ash said excitedly shaking his head "Alright let's head back gang, I'll visit again Bill!" Ash called over his shoulder walking away

the walk back to the center was quite uneventful, he had a couple battles with rhyhorn, charmander had tried to hop in but Ash held him back, it would be at least a week or two before he could train and about a month before he could fight. There were also quite a few trade offers for charmander, but he wasn't going to trade charmander for anything. The time was mostly passed with charmander chattering in his ear, but Ash couldn't understand him so he just nodded every once in awhile, prompting charmander to keep talking. Once Ash made it to the city he returned rhyhorn and pidgeotto to their pokeballs before realizing he still hadn't caught charmander.

After explaining what a pokeball does and what it is he captured him then let him back out. He was sure charmander would prefer to stay out and see the sights.

The golden charmander on his head had quite a few people staring at him but he made it to the pokecenter without incident thankfully. Nurse Joy saw him walk in and smiled

"I see bill gave you a new passenger"

"Ya, this little guy got quite attached to me" Ash said reaching up and giving him a tickle, prompting a giggle from the little lizard "I was actually hoping you could give me a few pointers on how to raise him, he's only about three days old"

"I have a break in about half an hour, why don't you take a seat over there and I'll come talk to you when it's time" Nurse Joy responded happily

"Sounds good" Ash said smiling as he turned and walked away

Ash waited the half an hour then Nurse Joy came over and taught him as much as she could in half an hour

From his diet for the next month to when he can first battle, to how to groom charmander and what is new diet should consisit of.

Ash took it all in stride and made many notes on everything she talked about, then went into his room, released his friends and told them the plan, it was almost the exact same, start pidgeotto, end with jolteon.

Rhyhorn and charmander both seemed upset but both understood, which surprised Ash that rhyhorn would realize he's weak to water.

That night Ash went to bed with his pokemon taking the same spots as before, and Ash dreaming of his next badge

AN: wasn't planning on Ash getting any shiny pokemon, But a black and red charizard is just way to badass, had to give it to him. still not sure if he'll get the other two starters though.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Ash called his Mom first and told her everything was fine, he had just been training and hadn't been near a phone, then introduced her to rhyhorn and charmander, who she instantly fell in love with, swooning over him as he charmander gave a shy smile and wave to her. Ash made sure to keep the fact out he was almost killed. Next was Professor Oak, but being the regions main professor and being high up in the league was enough to let him know what had happened to his sponsored trainer, and he was furious at Ash, even threatening to tell Delia, but Ash sweet talked his way out and stopped him with a deal to let Professor study the shiny charmander sometime, they talked a bit more before Ash's stomach growled loudly and professor let him off to eat.

Returning rhyhorn and pidgeotto after eating breakfast Ash placed charmander on his head and jolteon followed him out. It took them about half an hour of walking to find the gym. It was shaped like a large dome, the sign on the front featured a large dewgong, Ash stepped through the doors and there was an escalator and stairs to lead him down from the front entrance, taking them he found the walls turning to glass, and he could see horsea, poliwag and seel swimming around, at the bottom were a bunch of rocks, with krabby and kingler scuttling around on them.

Reaching the bottom of the stairs Ash found himself in a huge lobby. Easily twice as large as Pewter City's. On the left side of the lobby were a bunch of poles with the ribbons across to make lines, but they were all pushed together in a corner, not out on the floor, there were also a bunch of ticket booths on that side, only one was open currently with a bored looking employee staring off into space.

Ash remembered hearing that along with being avid battlers, the sisters loved to put on water ballets, and were quite famous names, Ash had caught a couple on television. He blushed thinking of them, there was a reason two thirds of their audiences were men aged 15-35, they were smoking hot!

But he wasn't here to watch a ballet; he was here for his second badge. So he walked to the right side where a young woman sat, chewing gum and typing something on the computer, she looked to be close to his age.

"Hi there, my name is Ash, I was hoping I could schedule a battle?"

The girl looked up to see Ash, giving her his signature smile and a blush crossed her face, but went unnoticed by Ash, we wasn't aware that he was a pretty attractive guy.

"U-uh of course, when were you hoping to battle?" she said suddenly nervous

"As soon as possible would be the best" he replied still smiling at her, she quickly pulled out her schedule and covered her face with it

"Well, we did just have a cancellation in a couple hours the sister were going to use for practice but I could try and convince them to battle you"

"That would be amazing! You're the best" he took a second and peered at her nametag "Jessica" he said with his best smile, which she blushed at and hesitantly returned.

Ash went and sat in the lobby while she got on the phone, he could see her glance at him every once in awhile

After hanging up she called him over and told him his battle was in two hours which Ash profusely thanked her for.

The time passed intensely slow, but that's what happens when you check the clock every five minutes waiting, charmander was increasingly jittery to, but most young pokemon always wanted to play or be on the move, much like young human children, so Ash kept him amused by showing charmander the pokedex and what it does, and letting him press all the buttons which made him quite happy.

Finally they were called up and Ash returned jolteon but kept charmander out as he walked down the hall on the right, recieveing a yell of good luck from the receptionist.

After ten feet he was met with a staircase going up and he walked back to surface level. The walls went from glass to regular again as the stairs ended and another hall began it didn't go far though, as it opened up into quite a large room with an olypic size pool in the middle, except much wider, like two side by side. About five islands were placed in the pool, with quite large walkways connecting them four outer ones placed in a square with one center.

Ash walked up to the edge of the pool and looked in it to see a giant face staring back at him, Ash yelped and jumped back quickly, falling on his rear end, as the giant head lifted itself out of the water and its snake like body was brought out of the water about ten feet as it roared loudly and glared down at Ash who still sat near the edge, charmander tried to growl back, but it only came out as sounding extremely cute

"Gyarados return" a beam of red light came out from behind Ash and hit gyarados, returning it to its pokeball. "Sorry about that" Ash heard from where the pokeball light came from.

Turning around Ash's face became red as he saw the three sensational sisters standing behind him smiling, which he returned as he stood up again.

All three sisters were in one piece bathing suits and they're hair was wet, he assumed they had just been swimming. The sisters were incredibly famous through Kanto, so everyone knew the blonde as Daisy, purple haired Violet and pink haired Lily.

"My name's Ash Ketchum, nice to meet you" he said as he stuck his hand out

"Jessica was right, he is cute, and the kid's head he's on isn't to bad either" Ash and charmander heard Lily say making the boy and his pokemon blush. "A bit young though, too bad" she continued with a sad face while the other two giggled at the huge blush and embarrassed face Ash and charmander had on "maybe we can introduce Misty to him though" she kept on as the three shook his hand

'Why does that name sound so familiar' Ash thought, momentarily distracted 'oh well doesn't matter now'

"So are you ready for my gym battle?" Ash asked with a large smile

"Sure am, lets go kid!" Daisy said as she walked to the other side of the pool, Ash took the hint and made the long trek to the opposite side

"This will be a two on two battle between Ash Ketchum and Daisy Waterflower, once both of one trainers pokemon are unable to battle the other will be the victor" Lily stated officially. She looked left and right, saw both Ash and Daisy with an enlarged pokeball in their hands, "begin" she called loudly

"Pidgeotto lets go!"

"Seadra I choose you!"

They shouted simultaneously throwing out the pokeballs.

Pidgeotto arrived and circled the middle island of the pool, while seadra frilled the wing like protrusions on his back and dived underwater for a second before coming back up.

"First move is all yours Daisy" Ash called across the pool

Ash then blushed as he could have sworn he heard Lily say "cute and a gentleman, he's after my heart."

"Alright seadra water gun rapid fire"

"Dodge" was the only reply Ash gave as he evaluated her pokemon, it looked like it could be C-team, but on the verge of breaking into B.

Seadra sent short blasts of water at pidgeotto as quick as it could, but all the speed training she had been through made her able to dodge them easily.

Ash just kept sizing up seadra.

"Alright get in close with quick attack then wing attack"

"It will be easier to hit when it's close, keep shooting seadra"

Pidgeotto was able to time it nicely though, as seadra took in a breathe to shoot more, she struck the only part out of the water, being seadra's head and dazed the pokemon

"Seadra smokescreen" seadra obeyed and released a bunch of smoke from his snout

"Blow it away pidgeotto" pidgeotto started flapping his wings as she faced the smokescreen

"Full powered water gun" was all Ash heard as pidgeotto was knocked out of the sky by the powerful blast of water, landing on the middle of the island

seadra was about ten feet from the smokescreen, almost directly under where pidgeotto had been

'I can't believe I fell for that, thought she was just giving seadra a rest to shake off the head hit, but it was a distraction to get behind pidgeotto'

"Come on girl! Back in the air, that hit was nothing!" Ash encouragingly yelled, pidgeotto responded by standing up and taking off again

"Twister around yourself"

'Seadra must not have the control yet that experienced seadra's or kingdra's have to be able to control twisters from a far' Ash realized

Shaking its wings the twister built up around, sucking up water, making it more of an above water whirlpool spinning counterclockwise

"Now suck pidgeotto in" Daisy called loudly so seadra would hear

But Ash was known for thinking on his feet

"Whirlwind clockwise!" Ash called, and was immensely happy he had decided to teach pidgeotto the move while camping after catching rhyhorn

the whirlwind picked up its own water as the twister and whirlwind collided and mixed together

"Just a lil more pidgeotto! You can do it! And get ready for a wing attack soon"

The last command had Daisy stumped as she watched the whirlwind and twister fight for dominance.

They were evenly matched, as both died out quickly, cancelling eachother out. All the water fell, with seadra flailing through the air, as it had stayed in the middle

Pidgeotto saw the opportunity and swooped in before smacking seadra with her wing as hard possible onto the corner island closest to Ash, it looked quite tired but it still flailed on land, desperately trying to get to the protection of the water

"Quick attack to finish"

Pidgeotto dived and sped in, before crashing into seadra, who went limp, knocked out

Daisy sighed and took out seadra's pokeball and returned it, thanking it for battling so hard.

PIdgeotto screeched in victory before moving over to Ash and landing beside him. Ash rubbed the crest on top of her hand and congratulated her as she leaned into his touch and charmander added his two cents, yelling excitedly at her.

"Nicely done Ash, but its not over yet!" Daisy yelled as she threw her next pokemon out, it materialized into a dewgong, although this one was quite small, signaling it must have just evolved.

"jolteon you're up!" Ash called out, throwing his own pokeball out and jolteon materialized on a corner island closest to Ash, letting out a loud growl

Daisy face seemed to lose color for a second, but then settled into a determined poker face.

"Alright dewgong ice beam"

Jolteon took off down one of the paths with the ice beam chasing behind it

"Counter with thunderbolt"

Jolteon charged up a thunderbolt and sent it at the ice beam cancelling each other out exploding.

"Thunderbolt again"

Jolteon sent out another one where he remembered dewgong being, and although it wasn't a direct hit, Dewgong yelled out in pain as the electric current coursed through the water and wracked his body

"Dewgong ice beam the path on either side of jolteon"

Dewgong obeyed quickly, and then dove just in time to miss a thunderbolt that was sailing over the water at his head. He resurfaced about twenty feet away from his last position before poking back up

"Ice shards"

Dewgong created an icicle in front of his mouth before launching it at jolteon who jumped to the side to miss it, put slipped on the ice and fell in the water

"Now headbutt"

Jolteon had finally pulled himself up again when he turned and got an extremely painful headbutt to the side with dewgongs horn painfully jabbing him, once again knocking him into the water.

"Again dewgong"

"Stay there jolteon!"

dewgong got incredibly close before Daisy realized the trap

"THUNDER"

Jolteon charged up incredibly quick and a second before he got headbutted, his body erupted with electricity for a few seconds before dying down

Jolteon quickly swam up to the path and howled in victory as dewgong floated on the surface knocked out, but its injuries didn't look too severe thankfully.

Daisy recalled it and gave both pokeballs to an aide who ran off

Ash recalled jolteon than released him beside him, petting him and congratulating him also, and charmander once again yelled excitedly to their companion. He then returned jolteon and pidgeotto to their balls before leaving the trainers box.

They met Daisy poolside again

"That was an amazing battle Ash, Brock wasn't kidding about you"

"You talk to Brock?"

"Well not so much talk, as much as turn down his date and marriage offers" Daisy said with a laugh, Ash just sweatdropped before also laughing.

"As proof of your victory at the Cerulean Gym, I award you the cascade badge" Daisy stated handing over a teardrop shaped badge to Ash with a smile. Ash thanked her before walking out of the pool area but not before hearing Lily once again and seeing Daisy and Violet slightly holding her arms

"Oh god he's a great battler too, come back for me Ash in a few years!"

After that Ash definitely held his head a little bit higher walking out of the gym.

He handed over pidgeotto and jolteon's pokeballs to Nurse Joy before sitting in the lobby for a bit, chatting with charmander.

About half an hour later Nurse Joy informed him that after a day of rest they should be fine. Ash received the pokeballs thanking Nurse joy before heading to his room. Once inside he released the three pokemon from they're pokeballs, and laying out on his bed. It was only supper time, but they were all dead, except for rhyhorn, but he soon fell asleep too.

The next morning Ash woke up and told his pokemon he was just going to run some errands like head to the pokemart before coming back to hang out with them the rest of the day, since he decided today would be a rest day. Pidgeotto, jolteon and rhyhorn all nodded before laying back down for more sleep, charmander wasn't going to be separated from his 'father' though so he quickly called out his name and made up swinging motions with his arms, prompting Ash to pick him up and place him on his head. It was just after lunch when he left.

The only thing that annoyed Ash was when charmander sat up there he had to take off his hat. Charmander had on more than one occasion try to rip off the small circular bump on the very top, guess it was uncomfortable for him, but charmander always played with his hair and moved it to make himself as comfortable as possible.

After receiving directions form Nurse Joy Ash left to the pokemart.

It didn't take to long to find, they usually tried to open up close to a pokecenter anyway.

Ash had taken inventory before he left, he was good for potions, antidotes and pokeballs. He also had quite the balance on his pokedex by now, after getting nurse joy to transfer most of his cash onto his pokedex balance. Gym battle wins gave quite the pay out, not to mention he had won a lot of battles. Ash picked up a bag of electric, ground, flying, fire type food and a bunch of powdered milk for charmander, he also restocked on water purifying tablets. He then picked up some rock polish to clean rhyhorn with, and some specialty wipes and soap for charmander, since the small fire pokemon loathed water at the moment. He made his way to the pokeball aisle and grabbed an ultra ball.

Ash went up to the counter and quickly paid for everything but the ultra ball with his trainer balance, receiving an odd look from the man working the till.

"Do you guys do trades?"

"We are able to, what do you think you can trade for an ultraball? These things are even out of my price range"

"One sec" Ash replied as he searched through his bag for a moment before pulling out his chunk of gold, better known as a nugget

"Whoa, where the heck did you get that kid? Find it in Mount Moon?"

"Yessir, a rhyhorn I caught had been keeping it at his home, guess he likes shiny things" Ash lied through his teeth

"Nice find, just gimme a sec to verify if it's real and not fools gold the cashier replied pulling out a small eye magnifying glass and looking it over

After placing it back on the counter he stuck out his hand

"You got yourself a deal kid" Ash shook his hand and hid the ball in a side pocket, before sucking everything else into the pokeball technology pocket. That was extremely handy Ash realized, that pokemon food was extremely heavy.

Then heading to a grocery store Ash picked up some canned food and tingredients for sandwiched for himself.

Next stop was a nice café near the store sitting down to eat, after feeding charmander his milk, of course, before heading back to the center.

He then went to the cafeteria and picked paid for a bunch of specialized food, the lodgings and healings were free, but food still cost at pokemon centers, they had to bring in some kind of income for the league.

After picking up the food he brought it up and fed his pokemon supper. Then proceeded to groom them, making them all extremely happy, except charmander, who seemed to hate being cleaned.

It was pretty late by the time he cleaned rhyhorn with the polish, so they all packed it in for the night and almost fell asleep but were interrupted by the center speakers

"Ash Ketchum to the front desk please"

"I'll be right back guys" he spoke to his pokemon as he left the room

He was surprised to see a familiar curly haired research

"Hey Ash!"

"Hey Bill, what's up?"

"Well I had to come get some supplies when I remembered a ticket I got a couple days ago from the league, it's for a cruise ship called the S.S. Anne and some bigwigs there were trying to get in close in case they need some favor sometime so they sent me a ticket. I Don't quite have time to go though, so I thought I'd see if you were around, good luck for you" Bill replied smacking the ticket in his hand

"I really can't take this too, I already have charmander!"

"Oh don't worry about it, It would go to waste anyway, besides, you're a good kid, you have a bright future ahead of you, might as well get in the good books early of a possible champion"

Ash blushed deeply in embarrassment

"Thanks a ton Bill, I don't know how I'll repay you

"Like I said, don't worry about it! But I gotta head back soon, don't want to fly in the dark, see you later Ash" Bill said walking outside, Ash watched him release a pidgeot and hop on before it took off

Ash returned to see most of his pokemon asleep already except jolteon who he told what happened, before picking up charmander gently and placing him on his chest. He would have to make some device for charmander soon to keep his tail in the air, but for now, Ash just slept shirtless and charmander fell asleep on his stomach since he was to young for his tail flame to burn yet.

The next day they woke up early again, explained about the ticket then returned rhyhorn and pidgeotto he left the room and handed Nurse Joy his key and thanked her for everything before trying to head out. But he was stopped by the kind Nurse.

"Ash before you leave I was hoping you could do me a favor?"

"Uuh ya I guess" Ash replied caught off guard

"It shouldn't take too long, I have some medicine for a Ms. Melanie, she has a house about two blocks away, just walk outside and take a right, look for a blue roof and a giant backyard"

"Okay, sounds good" Ash said taking the medicine from her hands and heading out, and he soon enough spotted the house, and leaned on the fence at the side because boy did Nurse Joy undersell the backyard, that place was huge! It even had a large pond! Ash could see many pokemon playing or relaxing in the yard and looking quite content, so he walked forward then turned and walked up to the front door and knocked a few times

A cute woman opened the door she had short blue hair and wore red overalls

"So the city is sending kids to do his dirty work now eh?" She said eyeing up the package and letter Ash held and giving him a glare

"What?" He replied confused "My name is Ash, Nurse Joy asked me to drop off this medicine for you"

"Oh that's great!" The girls attitude did a complete 180 as she smiled warmly and took the package "My name's Melanie by the way, would you like to come in?"

"I was going to leave town, but I wouldn't mind looking at all the great pokemon you have in the backyard!"

"Okay I'll give you the tour, but first I'm going to put this away, I was running low"

Melanie led the way into what looked like an infirmary and dropped the package before leading Ash and jolteon outside

"No battling is allowed here though"

"Fine by me" Ash replied smiling as they stepped out a sliding glass door to the yard

Ash gaped as he watched all the pokemon, nidoran scurried by in packs, while a bulbasaur seemed to be scolding an oddish, and bellsprout strutted around, over in the pond a staryu floated on top of the water while a few magikarp splashed and jumped around.

Just then the bulbasaur noticed them and ran over and growled at Ash, only to be met with a larger growl from jolteon

"This is bulbasaur, he's kind of the big brother to all the pokemon and takes great care of them right?"

Bulbasaur stopped growling while she talked and held his head high as she praised him

"That's really awesome!" Ash replied smiling at the grass type

"So what is this place for?"

"I mostly just take in injured wild pokemon or abandoned pokemon and they come live with me here"

"That's really cool, how do you keep it running?"

"Well I'm from quite the well off family, so that helps a lot, plus the fact my family has owned this house and the land back before Cerulean had turned into a large city, refusing to sell it. That's why I thought you were here, I've been getting offers non-stop lately, I think they want to build condos"

"Don't give in Melanie, what you're doing here is really amazing, and with a partner like bulbasaur you should be just fine"

Bulbasaur heard those words and hated to admit it, but this guy wasn't too bad, so he struck up a conversation with jolteon as they strolled through the grounds

They spent a couple hours there, as Ash helped Melanie feed the pokemon and a couple other chores, bulbasaur seemed to be quite taken with the trainer as he told him about himself and his journey, the grass type following him everywhere at first to keep an eye on him, then to just hear his interesting stories, and had huge respect after he heard about him and jolteon's first meeting.

It was only around 10:30 when Ash decided he had to continue on

"Sorry Melanie, but We're off to Vermillion" Ash spoke pointing to himself and jolteon "And I don't want to get started to late, so I think we'll be heading out, thanks for showing me everything though!"

"Thank you for all your help today Ash I really appreciate it" She responded smiling

"Make sure you take care of Melanie and the rest of the pokemon well bulbasaur" Ash directed at the grass type, who responded by saluting with a vine

"Hopefully we cross paths again" Ash waved as they left, not noticing the slight longing in bulbasaur's eyes as they disappeared into a crowd of people

Ash headed south, he knew Sabrina was in the top 3 best gym leaders of kanto and she rarely showed mercy to rookies who didn't recognize that so he wasn't going to saffron for a while. He could head east and take the tunnel to lavender town and try out catching a ghost type, or go to saffron and either go to celadon or vermillion.

Deciding he wasn't ready for another mountain or tunnel so soon, he started down to saffron.

Releasing pidgeotto he let her fly along with them and after he was off the perimeter he did the same for rhyhorn, letting him walk along, what he didn't realize was jolteon would get lazy, as he soon jumped on rhyhorns back and laid down.

After seeing jolteon and rhyhorn, most trainers thought better of challenging him, realizing most of their poorly trained rattata wouldn't stand up to them. A couple kids with oddish's thought they had the upper hand but Ash called pidgeotto and took care of them.

Charmander seemed to be having a great time as he took in all the sights around him, sometimes excitedly pulling Ash's hair to point him a direction to look at something he found especially interesting. They stopped about one o'clock and Ash set up a camp, as the pokemon ate and then the rest of the day was spent training.

This went on for about a week before they got close to saffron, he had enough food to easily last him a week, and with rhyhorn his pokemon's fighting load was lightened so he skimmed the perimeter and kept heading south.

Charmander had moved on to solid food a few days ago and started growing, it was only another week to vermillion and Ash could start with charmanders training. Right now all he had him doing was breathing exercises to work out his throat muscles so when he taught ember, charmander would have an easier time of it.

As Ash walked he had quite a few trainer battles, he ended up losing quite a few which surprised him, but it made sense, most of the experienced trainers hoping to enter the indigo league were probably hanging out around here trying to get a badge from Sabrina.

Nevertheless, he continued on, although a little sadly and his wallet wasn't quite as fat as it used to be.

About fours days of travelling had built it back up though. He had entered the hilled plains and a lot of rookie trainers hung out here, trying to catch a nidoran or meowth, he even heard of a few trainers seeing the ever elusive farfetch'd, but those things were almost extinct, he doubted it was them and not just a pidgey.

That's when he heard an incredibly loud growl erupt from, just over the next hill and ran up to it, he could see a badly beaten growlithe, Ash wondered what from when his eyes widened as he saw the next pokemon appear out of thin air and growlithe was blasted back by a purple beam.

"Whoa, abra's are already incredibly rare, not to mention hard to catch, what could one be doing out on the plains" Ash asked jolteon, who just sat and watched. Charmander however was not so compliant to just sit, seeing his fellow fire type being beaten and pulled Ash's hair in the puppy pokemon's direction.

"I know charmander, im going to help growlithe before abra does serious damage, I'm just waiting for the right moment"

Charmander wasn't to happy, but stopped rushing Ash

That's when Ash saw growlithe go down hard from another psybeam

"Whoa, alright time to step in"

Ash sprinted down the hill, Abra didn't notice though as Ash watched a ball of darkness build in his hands, it kept growing incredibly large as Ash sprinted his fastest, he'd be damned if he would watch a pokemon maim or, with the power that shadow ball had, possibly kill and just stand by

"Jolteon thunder"

Jolteon stopped running for a moment as he took aim and built up the electricity in his fur, abra was concentrated to deeply to realize the huge bolt of lighting fly at him and strike. The thunder also reacted with the shadow ball, blowing up in abra's face.

Ash ran up to the scene quickly to see abra completely knocked out, not to hurt though, on the other hand growlithe was bleeding and his breathing was shallow.

Ash quickly tossed a pokeball at abra, it didn't put up a fight as it was an instant capture he then released rhyhorn.

"Jolteon rhyhorn, find some firewood, jolteon, dig out a shallow pit " Ash ordered as he pulled out his medical supplies and a super potion, going to work on growlithes injuries

The pokemon did as told and came back soon with jolteon dragging a couple logs in his teeth and pidgeotto flying a bunch of twigs, they dropped the twigs and branches in first

Charmander turned around and lit them up with his tail, after it started they pushed the logs on and had a nice fire going.

It took Ash some time before he had properly sprayed the wounds with super potion which acted as a disinfectant, a energy restorer, and if its only scraped and bruises it could seal them up, but this wasn't the case as Ash had to wrap up the wounds with bandages. He then picked up the growlithe, who he noticed was quite small, must have been only a couple months old, and placed him close to the fire. Fire types always healed and were more powerful the hotter they were, they tended to stay in the south. He knew this one had only recently been released from the pack arcanine and growlithe tended to make when they had young pups, before breaking off to themselves or with their mate.

He laid out his sleeping bag after and put out food for his pokemon and himself as they all ate. After charmander ate, he refilled the bowl of food and water before placing it in front of growlithe, he wasn't sure when he would wake up, but he would be hungry when he did.

"Come on guys lets go train" not wanting to bother growlithe they found a clearing that was pretty close, they used until it started getting dark and then headed back to eat some supper

They returned to their camp to see the food bowl and water empty and growlithe had moved and was now snoozing away at the foot of Ash's sleeping bag, bringing a smile to Ash's face.

Him and his pokemon ate and it had already gotten dark, so they sat around the fire in companionable silence for a while, even charmander, which surprised Ash.

It wasn't long lived though, since Ash decided it was time for everyone to get some rest, putting out the fire and falling asleep around Ash's sleeping bag.

Growlithe opened his eyes and looked around, he was almost surrounded by bodies, most as close as possible to the boy he remembered sprinting down the hill when the killing blow was being charged up. He had never felt so helpless and hopeless than in that moment, but this human had saved him! growlithe unconsciously scooted up the sleeping until he was nesteled between Ash's feet and fell back asleep with a content smile.

Awhile-later Ash woke up and saw growlithe and smiled before carefully slipped out his sleeping bag, trying not to wake anyone up.

Quickly laying out food for everyone, Ash started his own exercises, deciding everyone deserved a rest, about half way through jolteon and pidgeotto woke up and ate then relaxed until Ash finished.

By then Ash woke up the rest of his pokemon and growlithe who all ate breakfast.

"Hey growlithe, I want to make sure nothing happened to you internally so I was hoping I could bring you to Vermillion with me, if we start now we should be able to make it there tonight, after that I can bring you back here" Ash said with a smile

Growlithe just eyed Ash for a second before nuzzling his leg lightly, which Ash took as a yes

"Alright guys today is only travelling lets get going"

Jolteon and pidgeotto automatically landed on rhyhorn and Ash picked up charmander placed him on his head before picking up growlithe in his arms who seemed to snuggle closely to Ash.

After a bit Ash made jolteon and pidgeotto walk and fly, he wasn't about to let them get lazy, plus all the travelling helped keep them in shape and raised their endurance.

About halfway through the day rhyhorn started lagging behind, so they stopped for lunch, then Ash returned rhyhorn and they kept on. Rhyhorn weren't known for travelling distances, they were more of a slow bursts or sprints pokemon.

The whole way charmander and growlithe had been talking loudly, Ash caught charmander talk a few times and gesture at Ash then growlithe would look up at him with big adoring eyes. The two young fire types were getting along wonderfully, as growlithe was probably only a month older.

Pidgeotto hadn't done much but fly high in the sky, but she had come down a few times and chirped at jolteon who held the conversation for a bit, but pidgeotto would always fly back up highly and jolteon would keep his stoic expression on and walked forward. Ash decided he needed to do something for Jolteon soon, he was his best friend and he hadn't paid as much attention to him lately with charmander around.

The sun was starting to get low when they saw Vermilion in the distance.

Lots of trainers had tried battling Ash but he had either ignored them, or explained the situation, depending on the how they reacted to his polite no.

By the time it had gotten dark they finally reached the lights of the city, so Ash returned pidgeotto and trudged to the pokemon center.

"The automatic doors slid open and Ash stepped in and walked up to the counter to see yet another smiling Nurse Joy, it was starting to freak him out.

"Hi Nurse Joy, I'm Ash, I found this growlithe beaten badly by an abra which I ended up knocking out, he was pretty bad so I was hoping you could check him over? And im not sure how the abra will react, but maybe check him over to" Ash said unclipping the ball from his waist and handing it to her before placing growlithe in her arms"

What he didn't expect was growlithe howling and trying to squirm back to Ash

"Ash can you come with us, I'm going to have to sedate abra, but I'd rather not have to do it to growlithe also"

Ash did as told, he took growlithe back in his arms who gave a content sigh, before following her to the back, she checked him over, and gave an x-ray, Ash just pet growlithe the whole time as he gave content growls and hums. She then gave him a needle, but Ash had found a spot behind growlithes ear that made him melt and he hadn't even noticed.

"That's about it, by tomorrow he should be fine, possibly stiff and sore, but that should go away soon"

"Thanks Nurse Joy" Ash replied with a smile

"Want me there for abra to?" Ash had been describing everything that had happened from finding the battle to bringing growlithe to her while she had checked him over

"I don't think that's a good idea, psychic pokemon, much like fighting pokemon, are very concerned about honor and fairness in battle. I don't know how abra will feel about you because of the sneak attack, even though it was the best thing to do, especially since he seems to be quite wild in the first place."

Ash frowned at that but decided she was right so he started to head back to his room, but not before he heard Nurse Joy call the centers Kadabra, he guessed they would need help restraining Abra and possibly have to use hypnosis instead of sedating him. Ash decided to just wait in the lobby while they worked on abra, with jolteon sitting between his feet, charmander on his head and growlithe snoozing on his lap, Ash chuckled every once in awhile as he would hear the puppy give light growls and kick with one paw. He was at peace, until he heard a crash in the back, and knew it was abra. As a frown crossed his face.

That's when he realized he might have a harder time with this abra than he first thought. Most were heavy sleepers and passive, tending to teleport before getting in a scrap. But this one was anything but passive.

About twenty minutes later Nurse Joy emerged from the back looking a little flustered, but put on a smile "Abra is fine Ash, one nights rest and he'll be %100"

Ash smiled and thanked her, then got a room for the night.

He let out the rest of his team, except for abra, and they all fell asleep relatively quickly, all tired from the long day of travelling.

The next morning Ash asked Nurse Joy with the biggest puppy dog eyes he could if he could borrow kadabra to help with abra, and after a minute of begging she finally agreed, so they ate breakfast before Ash headed back out to the plains, he didn't want to try and deal with abra in the city, who knows what damage it could do.

They got a fair amount away and Ash put down growlithe and took charmander off his head before facing the puppy

"Growlithe, if you leave I'm definitely gonna miss you, so I was hoping you would come with me, and be part of my team, charmander is about ready to start training and a fire type partner could benefit both of you" Ash told the pokemon as he pulled out a pokeball "so what do you say?" Ash asked.

Growlithe didn't hesitate as he bumped the ball with his nose, getting sucked inside.

After the capture certified Ash let him back out, and growlithe shook his body as if he had been soaking wet, before letting out a loud howl and panting happily with his tongue hanging out the side.

Ash just smiled fondly at his new pokemon. He then released the pokecenter pokemon

"Hey kadabra, Nurse Joy let me borrow you for the day, remember the abra you held yesterday? Well I'm going to need a little help, is that alright with you?"

The psychic pokemon looked at him and seemed to be studying his face before giving a small nod

"Alright when I release I need you to hold him as long as possible" kadabra just nodded once again

"Alright here we go!" Ash called releasing the psychic type

It looked around quickly before a blue hue surrounded it, holding it securely and Ash walked as close as possible and stared it in the eyes

"I'm Ash, and I'm your trainer now, Okay?" Ash asked it, it just stared back at him and Ash forgot he was being held by kadabra

"Alright let him go for a sec please"

Kadabra complied and Ash backed up a step

Abra sat cross legged on the ground with its hands behind its back for a second, before side arm pitching his right arm a shadow ball he had been building up

Ash rolled quickly to the side and then stood up to see a second about to impact him when a thunderbolt blew it up

"Hold him kadabra!" The psychic pokemon complied quickly and abra was once again locked down, but this time was struggling its best to move and break it, Ash found his pokeball he had dropped and returned him swiftly then sighed in relief and watched as all his pokemon glared and growled at the pokeball in Ash's hand.

"Thanks Kadabra, you really saved my ass" Ash said giving the pokemon a nod that it returned

"Do you mind hanging out for a bit while we train?" kadabra shook its head no and teleported a bit away giving them room while it looked to be meditating

"Alright everyone else move accuracy, growlithe you're with me" Ash called out

Ash got scan of growlith, apparently his ability was quite similar to jolteons, fire doesn't hurt the pokemon and if he is hit, the heat must warm his body up enough that his fire type attacks are even stronger than normal

"That's pretty amazing growlithe, alright show me your moves"

Growlithe barked in affirmative, and shot a few small fireballs into the air using ember

Ash went and grabbed a good-sized branch and growlithes mouth was filled with dark energy as he bit down and almost snapped the branch in half

Followed by his nose slightly glowing as he sniffed the air. Ash realized as odor sleuth, energy was transferred to his nose, heightening his sense of smell, making it easier to find his opponents that would come in handy for the underrated but annoying double team.

He was cut from his musings as growlithe curled up in his lap

"That was great buddy" Ash said and scratched behind his ear, receiving a content growl, before he jumped at Ash and started licking his face as Ash fell back laughing, and charmander giggled beside him.

"Alright bud that's enough, jolteon is going to show you some speed exercises I want you to do, okay?"Growlithe wagged his tail and barked before sprinting to jolteon

"Jolteon, teach him speed exercises" Ash called over, and jolteon yipped at him, letting him know he heard

"Alright time for you to train some charmander if you feel up for it"

He replied with a growl and a nod as his face became determined

"Can you scratch?" Ash asked the young lizard

Charmander ran up to a nearby tree as Ash followed

His hand then lit up and charmander struck the tree, carving out four small cuts where his fingers dug in

"That was great buddy!" Ash said enthusiastically and hugged him, charmander squealed, happy he had impressed 'dad'.

"Alright you just keep practicing that for a little bit and making it stronger" Ash told him with a smile before walking off and exercising himself, jogging around the clearing, followed by sit ups, push ups, and chin ups, then went through his fighting cycles.

After a small bit Ash got growlithe to help charmander learn ember, which happened for a bit.

After a couple hours it was time to go, he returned kadabra, rhyhorn, pidgeotto and tried growlithe but it dodged and sat at his ankles. So they headed out, jolteon at his right, charmander on his head and growlithe on his left.

He returned to the center and Nurse Joy was slightly disturbed that abra had attacked him, but Ash assured he was fine before thanking her profusely for kadabra before he went back to his room, and it was time for grooming, growlithe wasn't to happy with the bath, but sure loved to be combed.

After that they all passed out quickly.

The next day Ash took them all out again for training, everyone except for abra of course. Growlithe and charmander worked on ember while rhyhorn attempted stone edge and pidgeotto with tailwind.

Ash took jolteon for some one on one that day so they could finally perfect one of his moves that would help with this gym

He had talked to some trainers who had come in earlier this morning, apparently the gym was electric and the gym trainers, didn't show any mercy for someone they didn't deem strong. Only one had been won and then was trounced by Surge. The newer trainers pokemon were absolutely whipped, one kid said his pidgey almost died, Ash felt bad for his pokemon but was so close to busting a gut laughing, I mean who takes a first evolution flying type into an electric gym?

The day passed by quickly and Ash soon returned all his pokemon and headed back to the city. He was about to make a gym battle appointment and he wanted to make it quick, no girls swooning over charmander or jolteon, and now with the cute puppy pokemon added, he was bound to be stopped by a lot of people.

This gym was odder than the others; you first had to venture past the 20-foot tall chain link fence skirt what seemed to be a large power center that had power lines high up in the air going every direction out to Vermillion and then back behind it all was what looked like a football stadium with a yellow roof, and the whole place was filled with the hum of electricity.

Ash quickly skirted the perimeter of the large metal maze and building making up the large power center, before making it to the stadium, as the hum started to get on his nerves, he quickly opened the door and stepped inside

Ash walked through the small lobby, he saw signs for board rooms down his right, most likely for league meetings about energy production. Vermilion was known to give much of Kanto power, it had a powerplant only a couple miles outside of town on Cerulean river that emptied into the ocean near Vermilion river, not to mention the boost from all the electric pokemon around it, who just loved the charged air. They were tame enough being around the human workers all the time that they would send their daily discharges through cables the humans connected to them to help power the place.

Ash walked up to the front desk and a pretty large burly man sat behind it, he looked well over six foot and that he could bench over 300.

"I'd like to make an appointment to battle the gym leader" Ash stated monotone, staring the guy in the eyes, he wasn't going to look weak in this gym

The man just eyed him up for a second then nodded

"Tomorrow morning you can face a gym trainer then we'll see about Surge"

Ash just looked at him odd

"Cerulean and Pewter didn't make me face a gym trainer?"

"Well aren't you special, but that's not how we do things here. You have a one on one versus a trainer, if you win, Surge will battle you one on one"

"Alright, gimme the earliest you got"

"8 am, be here, if you're late you lose it" he said in what he hoped was a monotone, but this kid had him interested if he went right to the leaders in the previous gyms

"Gimme your license and I'll schedule you in" Ash handed over his pokedex and he checked in it.

"Ooooooh, that's why, you're Oak sponsored" he said matter of factly, Ash just nodded and kept on a poker face.

"Alright you're signed up, now scram"

Ash didn't take it personally and just left

He walked down the street when an officer Jenny came around the corner she watched him for a second before coming over

"Good evening officer can I help you?" Ash asked apprehensively

"You're a trainer right?

"I sure am" Ash said smiling

"Well I have a problem you see, someone from the city here abandoned a squirtle, it's been causing quite a ruckus around the city and we finally caught it, but we need a strong trainer, since it is quite dangerous, to take him off our hands, the current requirement is the thunder badge"

"I just got to the city and made my appointment for tomorrow morning!" Ash said excitedly, he'd always wanted all three of the starters

"Well that's not enough, if you win, I'll be around here tomorrow also" Jenny responded before heading off

Ash went back to the pokemon center and his room where he released all his pokemon

"Alright, tomorrow is a bit different" he explained to his pokemon

"We have to face a gym trainer first before we can battle the leader who's name is Surge apparently, its an electric gym so I'm sorry pidgeotto, you're out" The bird looked pissed, she was usually passive and loving, except for battling "Charmander and growlithe, I'm going to wait for your first battles against some new trainers, so you're out also" They both just nodded, although growlithe was miffed he couldn't show off for his new trainer. "That means it's rhyhorn and Jolteon" Rhyhorn gave a happy bellow to match jolteon happy howl

"Alright we're up early tomorrow, so sleep time now"

They all instantly took up sleeping spots, Ash found his spot first, since he wouldn't be able to move in his sleep with how packed his bed got.

The next morning they were up for breakfast and Ash took them on a jog to the gym, it was early morning so there was few people out.

He got to the gym at 7:30 and returned his pokemon, except for growlithe and charmander, they wanted to watch the battles. The same front desk person was there again and he just nodded as Ash walked into the gym. He sat in the lobby, talking to charmander and petting growlithe while he waited.

8 O'clock rolled around and Ash was called into battlefield, he walked down a hall that led straight forward, before coming to another large chain link fence and slide sideways into the wall and Ash stepped onto the field. It was just a basic clay field, but it was quite long and wide, about 80 yards across. Not as large as pewter or cerulean but there were no huge electric pokemon like gyarados or onix in kanto, so it wasn't really needed. He walked to the chalk outline of his trainer box and waited.

A kid walked out of the other side, he was about Ash's age, wore yellow shorts, a muscle tee and a backwards hat.

"No way I'm letting you beat me rookie" he smirked at Ash, seeing him get a little irked at the term rookie

"I'm going to win either way so I'll go first, I choose you magnemite!" he called out as a circular steel ball with magnets on each side and a large eye emerged in the flash of white with a robotic beep

"Alright, let's go rhyhorn!"

The armored pokemon emerged with a roar, as the kid slightly paled

"Sonicboom!" the trainer called and magnemite sent out some shock waves, which rhyhorn just took with a grunt of discomfort

"Alright! Now magnet bomb!"

"Block them with rock tomb!"

As magnemite sent the steel balls at rhyhorn, he pounded the ground and sent a bunch of rocks into the air colliding with the steel balls as small blasts in the air signified they were cancelling eachother out

"Stone edge!" while they were colliding rhyhorn brought out one large sharp stone and launched it, it collided with magnemite knocking it to the ground

"Bulldoze!" rhyhorn smacked the ground dealing some damage and making magnemite unable to get into the air again fast enough as rhyhorn charged at magnemite making solid contact with his horn, effectively knocking out magnemite, most pokemon would be quite hurt but magnemites steel body stopped most damage, only being knocked out.

The kid quickly returned his pokemon from the relatively fast knock out.

"Alright, you beat me, I'll get Surge" he said before walking off but not without glaring almost hatefully at Ash

'Sore loser' Ash thought, before congratulating rhyhorn with charmander and growlithe and then returning him

Ash didn't wait long before the fence behind him slid open and his eyes slowly widened at the behemoth of the man behind him.

Surge stood at about 7 foot, and was as muscled as a machamp, his short spiked blond hair stood straight, they were overshadowed by the camo outfit and combat boots he wore as he stalked over with his dog tags waving side to side

"You think you got a shot do ya shrimp?" he asked in a deep voice

"I know I do" Ash replied back with fire in his eyes, forgetting Surge was over 2 feet taller and probably 200 pounds heavier, the excitement for a battle blocking out any doubts he had earlier

Surge just laughed loudly "The more confident they are, the harder they cry after"

Ash just ignored him

"Well shrimp, time to send you back to the pokemon center" he stated as if it was a fact "I'll go first"

Surge walked the 80 yards with so much confidence, Ash was just hyped up to destroy it

"You have 2 badges right?" Ash nodded from the other side

"Alright lets go ray" he shouted and tossed the pokeball and a raichu emerged on the field

"Ray" Ash questioned

"He's my second raichu, had him almost a year, it would be confusing, Ash nodded and smirked, him and jolteon were together for a bit longer.

"Let's go J!" Jolteon emerged with a loud howl

Surge's eyes seemed to light up as the electric pokemon howled

"oh ho! Shrimp got himself an electric type, alright small respect for ya. Only small though" Surge Yelled smirking

"Alright raichu thunderbolt!" it launched a large arc of electricity at jolteon who just took it

Surge looked confused for a second before growling as he remembered Jolteon's body's were immune to electricity, most were refreshed from it

"Send one back!"

"Agility"

Raichu disappeared from his spot as the thunderbolt hit where it once was

"Iron tail"

He then reappeared in front of jolteon, cranking him across the face with his solid tail

"Agility right back" Now both pokemon disappeared and reappeared around the field as the played cat and mouse

"Dig" jolteon then disappeared underground

"Keep up agility raichu!" the Mouse just kept making his way around the battlefield

Ash just smirked

This went on for a few minutes, jolteon just waited it out as Surge thought up a plan

"Alright toxic down the hole"

Raichu ran to the entrance and started spitting copious amounts of purple poison into the hole

"Get out jolteon!" he did as told and emerged from the ground

"Quick attack" raichu looked up from the hole to get ran over by jolteon knocking him back

"Quick attack back!"

"Meet head on!"

They did and crashed into eachother, damaging eachother

"Wrap him up!" Raichu's long tail reached around and wrapped around jolteon's neck as they were head to head

he then flipped over jolteon and held him in the air

"Now hyper beam him!"

"Pin Missile!"

Raichu opened his mouth to charge it up but was interrupted as the white mane on jolteon stood on end and dozens of tiny pins erupted from his fur in every direction

Quite a few crashed into raichu, dropping jolteon and interrupting the hyper beam, now double kick

"Block with break break!"

They once again were at a stalemate

"Kick off" jolteon did that and created some space

both pokemon were panting and looked slightly haggard

"Hyper beam! Finish him!" raichu built up the energy quickly and launched the beam of pure energy at jolteon who carried out the order ASh had whispered only loud enough so only jolteon could hear it

A few seconds later the beam blew through where jolteon was and Surge laughed loudly

"I'll admit shrimp, that was exciting, but you're gonna need more to beat me"

and raichu ended his attack, only to look confused, there was no jolteon anywhere, Surge had the same face before spotting the hole in the floor

"Shit! Agil-"

He was cut off as jolteon emerged from the ground below raichu and chrashed into him with the rocks

Raichu was thrown backwards and landed with a thump, his body limp as he was knocked out, jolteon just walked back to trainer on wobbly legs

Ash ran out and picked him up before he collapsed

"That was amazing jolteon, raichu was tough eh?" Jolteon licked Ash in thanks and then nodded, agreeing with Ash as they walked over to Surge, growlithe barking excitedly and charmander chattering happily in tow

"Well shrimp, that surprised the hell out of me, I'm not happy about losing" he growled loudly as he loomed over Ash glaring, who shrank back

He then started laughing loudly "I'm just screwing with you, great battle there shrimp, here you go, the thunder badge, as proof you beat me" Ash excitedly took the badge it had eight golden points and a red gem center

"Alright! We got the thunderbadge guys" his pokemon all loudly bellowed in agreement

"Thanks Surge that was one of the best fights I've had" Ash said, sticking out his hand

"it was good, you're not that bad a kid shrimp" he replied as he took Ash's hand in a shake, which made Ash feel like it was breaking

"I'll make sure to come back for a rematch" Ash said as he walked to the fence to leave

"Be sure you do, I won't lose next time"

Ash just tossed a wave back before exiting

"Alright jolteon I'm going to return you, alright?" He was miffed but accepted

He picked up charmander and placed him on his shoulder, he was getting a bit big for his head and then picked up growlithe in his arms

"Let's find officer Jenny guys!" They both responded positively

It only took a few minutes and he found Jenny close to where they had talked the night before

"Officer Jenny!" He called to her

She looked over and smiled

"Hey kid, how'd the battle go?"

Ash just smiled widely and pulled the badge out from his pack and handed it to her

She examined it for awhile

"Congratulations" she said with a smile "You want the squirtle right?" Ash nodded frantically "Alright I'll pass him over, BUT, be careful, he has trust issues, and he might be quite hard to handle at first" She said as she grabbed a pokeball out of the fanny pack at her side

"This is so awesome! Thanks officer Jenny!" Ash replied excitedly picking the pokeball out of her hands and connected it to his belt "I gotta go take my pokemon to the pokecenter though, see ya later!" Ash called out, already sprinting away

He got to the pokemon center and quickly handed off jolteon's pokeball to nurse Joy before heading to the phone's and dialing professor Oak's number and after a few rings, the researcher picked up

"Ash my boy! How's is going?"

"I just won my third badge!" Ash excitedly explained

"That's wonderful, don't tell gary I told you this, but he only has 2 so far, although he does have close to 20 pokemon already"

"Whoa that's quite a bit, that's another thing I wanted to talk to you about, the officer Jenny of Vermillion gave me a squirtle that had apparently been causing trouble around the city before she caught it, I was wondering how I register him to my trainer profile?"

"Well you can just send me his pokeball with him in it, and I'll be sure register him and send him right back, but are you aware you'll be exceeding the six pokemon limit?"

"Ya I am I'm going to send over a couple pokemon with him, but I need him back as soon as you're done!"

"You're going to send charmander right? Please? Please! Please!" Ash just chuckled

"Sorry Prof, I'm just starting to train him, need him to stick around for a bit"

"Fine.." Oak said sadly, that man was mature and wise beyond words, except when it came to pokemon research

"I'm going to send over pidgeotto and rhyhorn, just gimme a sec" Ash told the Oak as he released his pokemon and informed them of what's happening, and then gave them training schedules as well as making them have a small mock battle once a day, and finally after promising to call them back soon he returned them to their pokeballs

"Alright Professor I'm going to send them over"

Ash walked to the back of the room to the transporter and typed in the number for Oaks Lab that he had been given before placing the three pokeballs in it, and after a bright shine they were gone and Ash walked back to the phone

"Got em?" He questioned

"Yes they've all arrived, just give me one minute to register squirtle" Oak responded as he put the pokeball in a scanner then typed for a few seconds on his computer. Usually a pokedex will automatically assign any pokeball to you, but since this one wasn't his he had to get professor Oak to play the role of his personal trading machine.

"All done, I'll send him back"

Ash just walked over to the transporter machine as the pokeball showed up

"Thanks a lot Professor" Ash spoke into the phone

"Anytime, I'll talk you later then" Oak cheerily replied and hung up

He then called his mom and informed her of everything that had happened and showed off growlithe and his new badge a bit, before he heard his name get called over the pokecenter intercom to come pick up jolteon, he bade farewell and hung up

Thanking Nurse Joy Ash took jolteons pokeball and headed to his room and released jolteon

It was only noon so after lunch and conversing with his pokemon he headed out of the city to see if he could talk to squirtle.

They got a good distance and Ash prepped jolteon who stood in front of him in a relaxed but alert state as Ash took out squirtle's ball and threw it in front of him.

The shape of the tiny turtle took form.

When it fully formed the small blue turtle pokemon had his arms crossed and glared at Ash.

"Hey squirtle I'm Ash, Officer Jenny told me she didn't have time to train you and that you were causing some trouble, so I thought we could be friends and you'd allow me to be your trainer" he said, smiling the whole time

Squirtle seemed to scoff before turning his back on the trainer

"Squirtle, I'm going to train you to be strong as possible, whether you like it or not, I'm giving you an early in to be part of the family, I'd suggest you take it"

Squirtle just stared at Ash, then promptly fired a water gun at his face, but before it even made it halfway a thunderbolt split it right down the middle before disappearing over his head

A look of shock crossed his face as he noticed the snarling jolteon for the first time and realized just how outclassed he was

"I'd like you to meet jolteon, my first pokemon and best bud, practically brother" Ash said and gave a flourish of his hand to the electric type who stood a little bit straighter, before some sad cries cut him off

"I didn't forget about you guys don't worry!" Ash quickly backtracked "This is charmander and growlithe, they're more like my kids" Both pokemon decided that was good enough and nuzzled his legs happily "I also have a pidgeotto and rhyhorn, but they're back at the ranch at the moment training since I can only have six pokemon on me, and I didn't want one to get lonely! So what do you say? You wanna be with us?"

Squirtle just sat for a moment and stared at the group, before a smile crossed his face while extending a hand which Ash took and shook but was soaked as soon as he let go by a laughing squirtle, who was soon joined by the rest of his pokemon

"Ha, Ha very funny. Time for some training, growlithe and charmander, ember, jolteon sprints, I need to scan you squirtle then you can show off your skills" squirtle's eyes shined a bit at showing off before he nodded

"Alright let's check you out" he said as he scanned him quickly and got the information

"Show off time then!"

Squirtle quickly blasted a tree with his water gun before following it up with skull bash, and then flew around in the air with rapid spin before following up with a move that really surprised him, as he used rapid sin a water gun erupted from each hole he had retracted into his shell from he promptly came back out and landed, striking the coolest pose he could

Ash just clapped loudly

"That was really great squirtle!" He praised, and squirtle raised his head a little bit higher

"Firstly you need a good defensive move other than withdraw, so we're going to start with protect sound good?"

Squirtle nodded in acceptance

And they spent a few hours working on it, by the time they had decided to pack it in and head out, squirtle could get the yellow shield up, but only for one second before it failed and disappeared

"That was a great day squirtle, you almost have it! I thought you would be a fast learner but not this quick!" Squirtle instantly came out of his depression hearing the praise and smiled at his new trainer

"Lets pack it in, tomorrow, we're on the S.S. Anne!"

His two new pokemon gave him odd looks

"I'll explain on the walk back"

**AN: Should we see bulbasaur again? Good chapter? Bad? Whatcha think?**


	4. Chapter 4

The walk to Vemillion docks didn't take long, as Ash jolteon and charmander stared at the giant cruise ship in front of them, the name S.S. Anne written in large letters on its side and back end, it was early morning and the ship wasn't due to depart until the afternoon but still, hundreds of people crowded the large wharf to get a glimpse of the behemoth of a ship. Ash saw quite a few people exiting and looking at Kanto in awe, which confused Ash, but he trudged through the crowd until he made it to the gate separating the crowds who didn't have tickets from reaching the boats. A few large security guards helping block the entrance, Ash pushed his way to them.

"Ticket?" One of the burly men asked as he held out what looked like a grocery store scanner

Ash quickly handed Bill's ticket over, and the man scanned it and smirked slightly

"So you're the lucky trainer Bill called ahead about, don't worry, he told us you were taking his place, head on in" He said and handed back the ticket

Ash just gave him a thankful nod

One of the other guards opened the gate slightly and Ash and his two pokemon slid in before it was shut again

A group of tourist looking people walked past, large cameras, flowery shirts and straw hats adorned most of them

"Excuse me, but aren't you guys from kanto?" Ash asked what seemed to be the leader of the tourists

"No sir!" He replied excitedly "The S.S. Anne goes between Hoenn, Sinnoh and Kanto on most of its cruises, I'm personally from Hoenn, but there are quite a few people from Sinnoh here to"

Ash laughed slightly at the excited response "That's awesome! Thanks for the info!"

"My pleasure, Lets head out!" The man cried to the group as the eagerly power walked to the gate Ash had recently walked through

'Maybe I'll see some rare pokemon' He thought to himself giddily, breaking into a sprint towards the boat

Reaching the gangplank that led to the entrance Ash just stared up in awe, it seemed even larger up close, he then continued up to the entrance where he was greeted by a two workers who handed him a pamphlet, his room key and then pointed him in the direction of his room, both seemed surprised when they saw what room number it was which confused Ash, but he quickly shook it off and continued on.

Opening up the pamphlet he noticed the front was a map of the boat, and the back was were lists of restaurants, stores and activities on the boat, deciding to check those over later he quickly scanned the map and saw where is block of rooms were and noticed how close he was.

Coming close to the front of the ship he finally turned off the outside railings of the boat and down a hallway to it's center, the hallway was immaculate looking, modern art hanging on the walls, lit up with soft light from the evenly spaced out chandeliers and he walked across soft carpet, in the minute he walked down the hall he only saw one other person, but he was fully suited up, and seemed to scowl down at Ash slightly

'No surprise there' Ash thought looking down at his clothes, his black slim jeans were tattered slightly around his ankles, his sneakers quite dirty, his form fitting black t-shirt looking old and worn, and his open red and white jacket not looking much newer than the others, and he knew his spiky black hair was as unruly as ever, even while covered with his special league hat that actually looked surprisingly fresh

Finally making it to his room he took out the key he'd been given and slid key card into the slot, a green light and a beep followed by the whir of the lock moving signaled him to open up the door, when he did he just gaped at it

Now he knew why the receptionist's had given him odd looks, there is no way he would have been able to afford this, you stepped into a living room that had two large leather sectionals facing a giant tv, the marble looking floor, to his right led to a large kitchen area, with all of the appliances, marble countertops and some expensive looking wooden cabinets, a closed door on his left caught his attention, 'probably the bedroom' Ash thought as he walked in and opened it, the bedroom was huge! A king sized bed in the middle with another huge tv on the wall closest to him, the far right wall was a giant aquarium, for water types and even a large wooden branch out of the wall next to the bed for a roost, and the bathroom on his left had a Jacuzzi and a shower with a double sink and of course the toilet.

In a room on the back end of the ship Ash was unaware of the pokemon tracking his presence…

A man in a blue blazer with gray pants and a black undershirt sat cross legged his his blue and black fedora like hat covering his eyes, next to him sat a blue and black dog like pokemon also in meditative position, when suddenly it's eyes flew open and it turned to its trainer but was interrupted by him before he could speak

"I feel it too lucario, his aura is incredible, yet lays dormant, it seems he doesn't know he wields it. Do you think it is time to give it up?" He asked as he pulled out a black and blue striped egg

The lucario responded with a few barks and growls

"Hmmm yes a test of his battle prowess, I do have a plan, time to go see the captain"

They both stood up and made their way out of the room

Back with Ash

Jolteon was already up on the bed trying it out while charmander just ran around the giant place excited, Ash released growlithe and squirtle also, who also looked around in awe for a second

"Alright I'm going to look over the map and the boats features, you guys follow jolteon's example and take a break, squirtle instantly climbed into the aquarium and sprawled out on his back and floated, growlithe curled up on Ash's lap as he had sat down to look over the pamphlet. They were soon joined by charmander, who had tired himself out from all the running around and now hung lazily over Ash's shoulder

'Wow this thing is huge' Ash thought 'pools, waterslides, battlegrounds..' And then one room in particular caught his eye 'the trading room' Ash got an idea.

"Jolteon come here!" The lazy dog looked irritated he had been woken from his nap but grudgingly trotted over

"I'm going to release abra, just need you around in case something happens, here we go!" Ash said releasing abra

the psychic pokemon stared at Ash for a second then started to charge another shadow ball, growlithe growled loudly seeing the pokemon that almost killed him

"Hold on abra! I have a deal for you"

Abra stared for a second before it dispersed the shadow ball

"Am I right in saying you like to battle?" a nod

"And you want to be stronger?" another nod

"And you'll need a trainer to travel so you can find new pokemon to battle against and help you train. And I'm also assuming you hate me right? Once again a nod

"First off I regret nothing, you were about to kill growlithe" the pokemon growled loudly again before getting a scratch form Ash, quieting him down "you may see it as dishonorable for me to do that, but I might have a way for both of us to get what we want" Ash thought he saw a hint of curiosity cross abra's face after that "what if I trade you? I'd make sure he was a nice guy and experienced to. Take a minute and think about it"

Abra did just that, as he sat for a while, then looked at Ash with his slit eyes, and gave him a nod

"Alright wanna go now? Might as well start searching early!"

Another nod and Ash returned him to his pokeball, followed by squirtle, growlithe and the now passed out charmander, growlithe was the only miffed one, he loved being next to Ash.

"Come on jolteon let's go" his faithful starter followed him out of the room. He got out of the hall again, and made his way along the outer railing to the back section of the boat, stepping inside the main area Ash looked around with poorly hidden excitement

The place had fountains and walking paths lined with trees and shrubbery that seemed to stretch forever, on either side, were stores or areas of entertainment like the arcade.

Jolteon followed Ash as they walked along the paths, checking every area, before they saw the giant sign with a neon sign saying 'trade swap' and opened the large glass doors.

Trainers lined wall to wall with their pokemon, a huge projection taking up most of the far wall shuffled through pictures of trainers with the pokemon they wanted to trade, two guards standing at the doors took a picture of him with what looked like a scanner with a large touch screen on it, then handed it to him.

"Alright, scan the pokeball with the pokemon you want to trade, your face and pokemon will appear on the tv and someone can find you, or there is also a search function on your scanner if you know what you're looking for, you can also get messages sent to you if someone else searched up your pokemon or your name if they see you on the tv, got it?"

"Ya, thanks a lot"

"No prob kid, have fun"

Ash walked in and quickly scanned his pokeball, and looked up to see his face and abra's on the projection, before he stood against the wall, he wasn't looking for anything specific so he'd just wait and see who offered him and what they offered, as much as he hated it, he cared to much for pokemon to hand abra over to someone who wouldn't take care of him.

That's when something touched his arm and Ash felt quite the overwhelming presence on his mind and the next moment all he saw was a flash and Tons of colors flash in front of his eyes before he felt his body meet unceremoniously with the floor.

He couldn't stop shaking for a moment and he had to repress the urge to throw up, he looked over to see jolteon faring a bit better but not as much, when he heard some chuckling

"Bronzong did you surprise him?" which was met with some metallic clinking that sounded an awful lot like laughing to him, Ash looked up to see a blue bell looking pokemon except it had two thin 'arms' coming out each side, standing next to a tall purple haired man, with matching purple glasses and wearing a red suit, who let out a small chuckle

"What the hell was that!" Ash yelled angrily and jolteon growled loudly, Ash could feel the power and pressure seemingly rolling off of the two, but at the moment he didn't care

"I'm sorry about that, you see, My name is Lucian, psychic pokemon elite of the sinnoh elite 4, I was given this back room for some privacy, you know how you young trainers get" he replied

Ash's eyes widened incredibly large as he heard that, an elite 4 was standing right in front of him! It would also explain the pressure he could feel on his mind and the power he could feel from them. He then remembered how he acted

"Sorry for yelling sir" Ash said looking at the ground, the lightinging pokemon beside him copying his movements

"It is no problem, young man, I would have been just as surprised, was that your first time teleporting?"

"That was teleporting?!" Ash said incredulously "That sucked!"

Another low chuckle escaped the elites mouth "You get used to it after awhile, now, the reason I teleported you here, you have an abra for trade am I right?

"Yessir, wanna meet him?"

"In time, what's the reason for the trade?"

"Well I would never think of trading a pokemon that wanted to stay with me, but I kinda caught abra with a trick, he was beating on a growlithe real bad, and before he could do anything really bad I had snuck up and knocked him out with jolteon here" Jolteon raised his head slightly in pride "I guess abra didn't like the underhanded tactic, even though I was just trying to save growlithes life, but now he refuses to do anything, he attacked me at first, but I convinced him a trade would benefit both of us, which he agreed with"

"How would he beat up on a growlithe, most wild abra only know teleport?"

"Well he also knows shadow ball, and what I think is psybeam" Lucian actually looked surprised for a second before going back to his blank face "I'm not sure how, but he's quite strong so I'm guessing he's been training hard on his own"

"Fair enough, now would you do me the pleasure of releasing him?"

"Will do" Ash said taking the pokeball off his belt and releasing the psychic pokemon

It didn't even look at his trainer as he eyed the bronzong and Lucian, Ash wasn't sure but they seemed to be having some sort of silent conversation between themselves before nodding at the same time, abra finally turned back to look at his trainer and nodded at him, and seemed to give off a feeling of happiness for the first time Ash had seen

"You know it's your call, He's the one?" Ash asked, and received a nod from the psy-fox pokemon, before he did something Ash didn't expect, Abra extended it's hand to him, after the initial shock was over, Ash smiled and shook the pokemon's hand

"So I've been accepted, but you are still under the microscope" Lucian said cryptically, before he released two green and white pokemon, both slightly human like, one seemed to be wearing a dress though, and the other had already extended his arms to look like swords before glaring daggers at Ash, trying to be intimidating as possible, the psychic pressure increased further and was a constant reminder of how powerful these pokemon were

"These are my gallade and gardevoir, they had a egg a few months ago and about two months ago it was hatched a daughter, they want her to go on a journey, travel and have adventures instead of the constant training and barely any travelling an elite 4 member is subject to" Ash thought that was fair, champions got to go on missions and travel for PR tours, but elite 4 were usually left behind as defense for the region

He then felt his mind go numb, as memories and feelings passed through his mind and he gasped in slight pain which didn't last long but after it passed he looked up to see Lucian and gardevoir seemingly scolding a bemused gallade, but that dropped once he felt Ash look at him, they made eye contact

Ash knew gallade had just gone through his mind and memories, and he wasn't happy, he didn't back down from the glare gallade gave him, and returned one of equal ferocity. They stayed locked for what felt like forever, but gallade soon relented, and gave him a nod, before he turned to his mate and trainer, and also pointed at Ash before giving them both a nod also, which surprised both

"I'm quite sorry for that Ash, gallade is quite the protective father"

"It's fine"

"Well it seems you've passed his test, time for them to say bye I guess" Lucian stated as he took a third ball off his belt and released the contents

A small white pokemon with a green helmet and red horns formed

It looked at his parents as they talked to their daughter telling her what was about to happen, she looked at Ash and he could see a timid smile under her helmet as she shyly waved, a family hug then ensued for a long time, finally breaking apart Lucian returned the ralts to it's pokeball

"Ready Ash"

"I don't know if I could wait any longer!" He responded excitedly, he was about to receive a pokemon offspring of not one but two pokemon of an elite 4, it had strength and battling in its blood, it would definitely have inherited some nice moves to, if he trained it right, it could definitely surpass both of its parents someday, not only that but it was almost unheard of for someone unrelated or unapprenticed to an elite 4 or champion to receive a pokemon or offspring of their pokemon. All these facts made him absolutely giddy

"Do you plan on keeping me waiting?" Ash noticed he had just been staring into space, while Lucian was already next to the trading machine that had been on the far wall behind the elite member

"Sorry!" Ash yelled and sprinted over to the machine, it looked like an H on its side, the center being a large display screen, and the sides being where you placed the ball and and top of the sides where it was teleported into the machineand placed the pokeball in the station on the left side as Lucian copied his movements on the right

"Now insert your pokedex or license, then press the green button in front of the ball" Ash did as told and the ball disappeared in a flash of white into the hole above the ball, an image of abra and ralts appeared on the edges of the display before being crossed over to the other side it and a few seconds later a pokeball dropped back into each pedestal.

Trading machines did all the technical work behind unregistering the pokeball and the pokemon inside from your profile and registering the new one to your pokedex or computer profile

It was just another reason a pokedex was so handy. They also made it easier when buying pokeballs as all you did was scan the empty pokeball after purchase and it registered it to your profile, instead of having to wait to get to a pc with a scanner if you didn't.

These rules were implemented after pokeball theft became a problem a few years back

Ash quickly released ralts

"Hey girl! You wanna come on my journey with me right?" She gave a shy smile and small nod "Well welcome to the family then" Ash said giving her his warmest smile, which seemed to bring her out of her shell a bit as her smile grew larger

"I'm going to head for supper, and the training, would you like to join me for some grub Lucian?"

"A kind offer, but I believe I'll retire for the night and connect with abra for a bit"

"Your call!" Ash told him as he looked down at ralts

"Wanna stay out with me or go in your pokeball?" She pointed at Ash "Alright lets go" Ash said as he picked her up and held her around her waist (like Misty to togepi in the anime)

Ash tossed a wave over his shoulder and exited the room, it only turned out to be a back room, and as soon as he stepped through he was back in the main trade area, he made his way through the crowd, shouting out no's as people yelled at him over other voices for jolteon or ralts

He final made it back to the front and handed back his scanner and thanked the guards as he stepped back out onto the pathways, he retraced his steps back to his room and ordered room service for himself, and each of his pokemon, before releasing them all, ralts was automatically accepted by growlithe and charmander as they were all quite young and began talking a lot to eachother, while jolteon laid on the bed and squirtle went back to his tank and lazed around after introducing themselves quickly.

"I just ordered food, and then after we eat we're going to train" each pokemon nodded at him

To kill the time Ash took out his pokedex and scanned ralts, she was a female and Ash was loving her ability, when she sees another pokemon she's able to use her psychic power to look into their mind and be able to perform their ability

That would come in handy, she already knew confusion, teleport, double team and shadow ball, add a few more moves and she'd be golden Ash thought to himself

The food finally arrived and the huge portions had the pokemon and Ash drooling, but they had to restrain themselves to only a quarter of it on Ash's order, didn't want to be to stuffed for training.

Ash looked at the map again and found that his ticket gave him access to the restricted training grounds, 'must be nice to have money' Ash mused to himself before he called the troops to their pokeballs and left the room

It only took about five minutes to find the place

It was about the size of two basketball courts and was surrounded by a large chain link fence, but was on the top deck incase flying pokemon were being trained, weights littered on end while some durable targets were on the other, he swiped his card quickly and opened the door, no one else was around, 'I guess they are more interested in dinner parties then battles' Ash thought as he released all of his pokemon, Ash began jogging and they all fell in line behind him, then it was target practice, move tutoring, followed by spars, then a light jog to tone down for the night.

Charmander was really getting ember down pat, the little shiny took to training like a goldeen to water, he loved it, growlithe saw this and certainly wasn't about to let his little friend pass him, and threw himself even more into training, Ash could definitely see a rivalry starting to form

Ralts had seriously impressed him to, Lucian must have been training her hard because she surpassed growlithe and charmander easily, although she was a bit young and inexperienced to take on the rest of his team.

Squirtle had also mastered protect which made Ash happy, he was quickly making his way up to Ash's number 2 spot for battling.

He kept them out since the field was so close, which turned out to be a big mistake since squirtle let his mischievous side take over and ended up soaking a party of people, and that ended with everyone sprinting back to the room before they had their wits returned to them. All the training had toned it down a bit but Ash hoped that after he gets more into battling that it would eliminate it.

They made it to the room safe and Ash triple locked the doors and proceeded to scold squirtle while they ate the rest of their supper.

Hunkering down for the night Ash turned on the tv for a bit as he climbed into possibly the comfiest bed he'd ever laid in, he was just enjoying it when a message over the tv caught his attention as the words 'A message from the captain' flashed across the screen

A burly man with a thick beard wearing his white sailor clothes and captains hat popped up on the screen

"Good evening passengers, we are about to leave port, may your cruise be filled with fun and sun, in other news, the ship battle tournament tomorrow will be staring at 10 am, registration begins at 8, anyone not registered by the 9:30 will not be participating, the usual first prize has an exciting addition this year though, as this mysterious pokemon egg has been donated by a man who wishes to remain unnamed, entrance is free for participating and observing, the battles and registration will be on the main deck, which is located in the middle of the ship, have a good evening" the screen cut to black after that, before returning back to the channel Ash had on previously, which was a rerun battle from last years indigo conference.

"You hear that guys?!" Ash looked around to see his pokemon looking just as fired up as him

"I better set my alarm early, no way I'm missing it! Bedtime now everyone, gotta be well rested for tomorrow!" Ash set the alarm and called the front desk and requested a wake up call. Turning off the tv he said goodnight to his pokemon and was soon asleep

The next morning his alarm and phone went off simultaneously, at seven, he answered and thanked the front desk and turned off the alarm, which had also woken up his pokemon. Ash took a quick shower, and returned his pokemon before he ran out of the room to the main deck.

He arrived a few minutes later, and was surprised to see he was the only one around, except for the tired looking man behind the registration table, who wearily acknowledged Ash

"Pokedex or License?"

Ash handed it over and the man flipped it open and filled out the form with the information then handed it back, you're number contestant 1, you'll randomly be placed in the bracket against another trainer, be here at 9:45 for the bracket announcements

"Thanks" the man only nodded in response

Ash left to the pokecenter after registration and released growlithe and charmander when he got to the phones

"I'm really sorry guys, but I really want the egg, so I'm going to need the strongest team I have, plus I need to spend some time with pidgeotto and rhyhorn, I'll call and get you soon though, I promise, and professor Oak is a really nice guy too, you'll like him" Ash tried being enthusiastic, both pokemon looked depressed but soldiered up, gave him a hug and nuzzle then Ash returned them and dialed the phone

"Hey Ash, wow another phone call so soon, what's the special occasion?" Professor Oak answered with a laugh

Ash chuckled "actually there is one, I'm on the S.S. Anne right now and there is a tournament on it, I was hoping I could trade out growlithe and charmander for pidgeotto and rhyhorn"

Oak's face instantly lit up when Ash said charmanders name

"Off course!" he all but shouted "Oh man, I get to study a shiny pokemon, you know how rare they are?! Incredibly rare!"

"Yes I know professor, so I'm going to send them over now"

"Of course, I'lll send an aide to retrieve rhyhorn and pidgeotto send them over though"

"Will do"

Ash got up and walked over to the transporter on the far walland sent both his pokemon to Oak and returned to the phone

"Got them?" Ash questioned

"They just arrived, I got pidgeotto and rhyhorn here too, I'll send them over"

Ash went back to the transporter and in two flashes of light the pokeballs arrived. Strapping them onto his belt Ash walked back to the phone

"Thanks professor Oak, take good care of charmander and growlithe!" 

"You know I will" Oak replied with a smile, then hung up, he still had an hour to kill before the tournament started so he walked back to his room and released his pokemon, pidgeotto gave him a nuzzle and rhyhorn a nod upon greeting, both seemed happy to see him again

"Alright everyone, tournament starts in an hour, I hope to use all of you at least once, but if I can't or don't, don't be offended please! There will be a reason why, the prize is a new family member so lets give it our all, but for now just relax and maybe do a little stretching alright?" Nods from everyone "Pidgeotto and rhyhorn you guys have been training hard right?" both of them gave nods again "Learnt tailwind and stone edge?" this time he received a happy bellow and chirp "Great job guys" Ash happily replied

Half an hour later he returned his pokemon to their balls, left the room and headed for the main deck

Quite a crowd had formed as Ash found the competitors section, it seems most people were here to watch though, as Ash counted around 30 people around him, he sighed in relief as he noticed Lucian wasn't there, but he did catch one man staring at him, the guy had a blue and black dog-like pokemon standing next to him, Ash recognized as a lucario from when professor Oak had started to study this weird energy called aura. The pokemon held itself with an air of power that was impossible to ignore, he really hoped he didn't have to battle him first

Just then the large tv to the side of the battlefield lit up and it seemed that they only allowed 32 trainers to sign up as their faces and names were on individual cards on the screen, Ash noticed the lucario's trainer was named Riley The faces were shuffled then two brackets facing eachother popped up with sixteen slots on each side, Ash was placed on the right side and gave a sigh of relief as he saw Riley was in the left his blood suddenly ran cold as he saw a name he had hoped to avoid. Gary Oak, he then heard the snarky voice behind him

"Didn't expect to see you here Ashy-boy, who'd you rob to get the ticket"

"Frig off Gary, The researcher Bill gave it to me actually, what about you"

"Gramps gave it to me, the league gave him one, but silph co has him working on some kind of project and he couldn't make. Kiss that egg goodbye, I've trained hard, jolteon can't even stand up to me" he said with his trademark confident smirk "looks like I'll be seeing you in the semis… if you even make it that far" he walked off.

Ash looked at the other people in the tournament, most looked like wealthy passengers, their younger children, who really didn't seem like they were old enough for a license, but money and connections did have their upsides, and a few sailor employees looked to be in it as well, his first match was against one who called himself Sailor Rob. He foung him sitting nearby and made eye contact then sent a nod at him, which was returned.

The rules of the tournament were simple, one on one battles, single elimination except for the final four, there would be a battle for the 3rd and 4th prize, which normally wouldn't be a thing, but with the addition of the egg being first, they made 3rd prize become 4th.

Turned out that Riley was the first battle, and absolutely decimated a wealthy looking man's growlithe with a powerful looking metagross.

Never one to get down though, Ash took this as a sign that he would be facing at least two strong trainers, if he made it to the final.

A few battles later and it Ash was called to the field, he walked down the bleachers and had arrived before Rob so walked to the opposite end he arrived as soon as Rob did

"This 1v1 battle between Ash Ketchum of pallet and Sailor Rob of Cerulean will now commence, trainers grab your pokeball" Ash knew his pick was a risk, but went for it anyway

"And release!" They threw their Pokeballs simultaneously, ralts formed in front of Ash and a short grey skinned humanoid pokemon formed in front of Rob, Ash smirked when he realized he had type advantage

"Machop low kick!" The superpower pokemon ran at ralts as his foot started to shine as he got close

"Teleport then confusion" Ralts teleported behind machop and sent out pulse of psychic force that tremored through the pokemon, dropping it to it's knees

"Again!" both trainers yelled, and machop got up quickly but was once again hit with a confusion attack

Ash could tell this pokemon did more time working than training as the two hits looked to have beat down the pokemon well

"Revenge!" Machop got up quickly and rushed at ralts once again but this time coated in a black aura

Not panicking Ash waiting for a second "Double team then charge up a big shadow ball"

Ralts split into about 10 copies and a shadow ball grew between the hands of all of them as machop started to run through them all, about three remained when Ash deemed it good enough

"Release it" the other two copies disappeared and everyone saw ralts release the large black ball of energy, connecting with machop's chest blowng him back

"Machop is unable to battle, Ash Ketchum wins" the referee called out after checking out machop

Ralts teleported to Ash's side and Ash gave her a hug and a thank you, the small psychic pokemon was breathing pretty heavily and looked tired so Ash quickly returned her, then met Rob in the middle and exchanged a hand shake.

The day trudged on and Ash was having no trouble with the other 'trainers' in the tournament, one older gentlemen even got mad when Ash doused his growlithe with squirtle, complaining that now he would have to send growlithe back to the spa for grooming again.

Ash had been watching Gary and had to admit, he was good, the semis would be quite the battle, and Ash was always itching for a good one. squirtle had battle once already and Ash could see he was close to evolving, his tail had grown longer, small tufts of fur had appeared on the side of his head and he was a slightly darker color.

The other side semi had just finished and Ash heard his and Gary's name get called to the battlefield, everyone recognized the grandson of arguably the greatest pokemon professor and researcher in the world and he now had almost everyone in the stands on his side cheering loudly.

"Choose your pokemon" both Ash and Gary grabbed pokeballs and enlarged them

"Ready for me to show you who the best trainer from Pallet is?" Gary asked with a smirk

"I don't need you too, I see him every morning when I wake up and check the bathroom mirror" Ash replied, jolteon beside him shook his head and tried covering it with his paw, 'note to self, learn better smack talk and comebacks' Ash noted mentally

"Begin!" the ref called

Both trainers threw their pokeballs out

A brown humanoid pokemon with a long moustache holding a spoon formed in front of Gary and a short blue turtle in front of Ash

Both pokemon regarded eachother in cool silence, it seemed they were having a contest of who could look the most impassive, it kind of confused the trainers, but Gary made the first move

"Psybeam"

"Water gun block"

A purple with flecks of blue and pink beam seemed to distort the space around it slightly as it flew from kadabra, only to be intercepted by the water gun, they pushed against eachother before both pokemon quit their attacks.

"Rapid spin" squirtle retracted into his shell and flew across the field spinning extremely quick

"Teleport" kadabra blinked out of the space he occupied and appeared about twenty feet away from where squirtle had aimed for him, he came out of the spin slightly confused before seeing kadabra

"Water gun again" squirtle inhaled and was about to blow out the water

"Disable" the water was about to erupt from squirtle when suddenly his whole body froze up and he couldn't fire, the turtle was surrounded by a red hue

"Lift him up and slam him"

"Withdraw if you can!" squirtle's efforts to withdraw were in vain though as kadabra raised him up and slammed him.

"While he's down, thunderpunch!" Kadabra teleported in front of squirtle and loomed over him, concentrating as electricity crackled around his fist as he drew it back and punched downward at the tiny turtle

Ash saw the finishing blow being delievered and desperately called out to squirtle

"Protect!"

a yellowish shield formed above squirtle and blocked the thunderpunch

"Skull bash!" squirtle scrunched his body up then flew up at kadabra, his head shining slightly with power as he delivered a solid blow to kadabra's chin, making the pokemon stagger backwards

"Water gun!" kadabra was just getting his bearings back when a piercing water gun struck him in the chest as he flew backwards

"Rapid spin!" Squirtle once again spun at kadabra

"Teleport" a game of cat and mouse began, with kadabra teleporting away as the rapidly spinning squirtle chased him, not giving him enough time to disable and hold the water pokemon, but just enough to once again teleport away, which was putting quite the strain on both pokemon as they were quickly becoming exhausted

"Water gun combo!" Ash berated himself for forgetting squirtle's show off move

Water erupted out of the shell and as kadabra reappeared he was surprised to see a pillar of water fly and strike him, knocking him to the ground

"Now spin up high" squirlte did as told "and come down with skull bash" squirtle emerged from his shell wearing a manic grin as he angled down and the top of his head shone bright as he fell from the sky

"Kadabra get out of there!" kadabra groggily opened his eyes and went to move, his head was to rattled to effectively concentrate enough to teleport, that's when pain exploded in his abdomen as squirtle connected with the psychic pokemon, and kababra passed out from the pain quickly

"Kadabra is unable to battle, Squirtle and Ash win!" the ref called out

Gary returned kadabra and thanked him, before he sent Ash a calculating look, they met in the middle of the battlefield

"Nice battle man" Gary said, Ash was surprised at the compliment but then his smirk returned "not quite sure how you won though, but whatever, next time I'm winning and won't stop, smell ya later loser" Gary turned and walked back to his trainer booth, as the 3rd place battle was about to begin. Ash just walked back to the bleachers and watched as Gary released a pretty strong looking wartortle, must have been his starter Ash assumed, he beat one of the sailor employees who had released a machop quite handily.

It was close to supper time when the battle finished and the finals came around, and this was the first time Ash didn't have faith in his ability to win as he stared down the man opposite him, Riley, like himself, had made quick work of his bracket with his metagross, but Ash guessed he deemed him worthy as the powerful looking lucario stepped onto the battlefield, Ash released jolteon, his closest partner and best battler.

The two dog pokemon stared eachother down, jolteon growling while lucario stared impassively with its arms crossed

"Aura Sphere lucario" Riley suddenly called out

"Thunderbolt to counter!"

The blue ball of energy and bolt of lightning connected and the aura sphere detonated, cancelling both attacks

"Now agility" Ash called and jolteon took off, only after images were showing up

"Sense his aura then extremespeed into bone rush" lucario closed its eyes and the oval appendages behind its ears raised up slightly, when it suddenly disappeared and reappeared 10 meters away, a jolteon flying through the air signified the hit as lucario stood up, blue aura staff shaped into a bone in one hand

"Now close combat" the aura pokemon rushed at jolteon again

"Pin missile" jolteon's mane erupted with bright needles that flew everywhere and lucario was forced to stop as he held his hands up and braced himself against the needles

"Thunder wave" the blue lightning erupted next as it flew at lucario

"Aura shield"

Ash was confused, he'd never heard of that attack before the thunder wave was cose when suddenly a wall of blue appeared in front of lucario blocking the attack

"Dragon pulse" the ball of draconic energy built quickly and lucario threw it before jolteon could dodge, nailing the thunder pokemon and knocking it out

"jolteon is unable to battle, lucario and Riley are the winners

Asj just walked up to jolteon who had woken up and pet him a bit and thanking him as he returned him to his pokeball. He was quite sad though; he had really wanted that egg.

"Hey Ash" he heard called to him, looking up he saw Riley walking towards him, forcing a smile, he didn't want to seem like a poor loser he replied

"Hey Riley, that was a great battle, lucario is crazy strong! Congrats on the egg also"

"Thank you Ash, that wasn't that even that close to lucario's actual strength though, I was just having him test you"

"Test me? For what?"

"Not now, come by room 315 in an hour, I'll tell you then" Riley replied, just as a very good looking ship employee walked up taking the two to the center of the battlefield to stand alongside the two trainers who had battled before them for 3rd and 4th already stood, she seemed to be ignoring Ash though as she stared intently at Riley, conversing with him.

"Wow what a great battle and tournament, lets give these four and all the other competitors a round of applause!" Screams and clapping erupted from the large crowd that had built up throughout the day

"Our first prize winner, the handsome Riiiiilllleeyyyyyyy, who dominated the tournament with his powerful pokemon and battle strategy, there was definitely no stopping this man" She rambled as a small blush came across her face when Riley smiled gratefully at her "His prize, is the mysterious pokemon egg" Another crew member walked up with it and handed it to him, Riley thanked the man as he received it

"Our second place winner, Ash Ketchum, who also blew through the combination, but he couldn't stand up to Riley's awesomeness" that irked Ash a bit, as he gave the girl a slight glare, ignoring it she continued on "His prize is shipped all the way from the Unova region, it's a cross-transciever! Quite the handy device for any trainer on the go who needs to keep in touch!" Ash took the offered prize and looked at it slightly in awe, the black watch band and red face, matched his outfit perfectly as he strapped it to his wrist.

The announcer continued on but Ash toned her out as she announced Gary as the third place winner he got an ultra ball or something Ash wasn't paying attention, he was setting up his new device, inputting his info and he had just put in his home number and professor Oak as contacts when they woman wrapped up the ceremony with another round of applause as people started to clear out

Ash went to the onboard center and waited about half an hour as jolteon was treated then practically sprinted to Riley's door, he seemed like a good guy but Ash was still wary of him, he released squirtle just in case

The turtle pokemon emerged and sent Ash a confused look

"Riley told me to come by here because he wanted to explain some things to me, I don't know him that well so it never hurts to have some back up with you in case something happens" Squirtle understood and crossed his arms and sent a mean look at the door, trying his best to look intimidating "Thanks buddy" Squirtle smiled at him before once again staring at the door, Ash was about to knock when the door swung open

Lucian sauntered out with his bronzong close behind "Alright, supper in half an hour, then we I'll get gardevoir and gallade to teleport us back to vermillion we're not far, but by tonight we might be out of range." he turned slightly and noticed a confused Ash "Oh, good evening Ash, congratulations on second place today, you really shouldn't beat yourself up over it, Riley is almost powerful enough to be an elite 4 himself" Ash Looked shocked at the statement before remembering how Riley told him lucario wasn't close to going all out

"Thanks Lucian, what are you doing with Riley anyway?"

"Well no other elite 4 was available to travel and when we're out of our home region we're supposed to be in pairs, Riley had some of his own business I think he is about to clear up with you so we travelled together" that raised more questions than answers but before he could ask bronzong had teleported them away, Feeling incredibly nervous as he gave a slight knock on the open door and stepped inside.

"Ah, Ash, you made it" Riley said as he beckoned him in

"Hey Riley, what's up?"

"Well I have something incredibly important to tell you Ash, have you ever heard of aura?"

"Ya, I remember professor Oak talking about it, doesn't you lucario use it in his attacks?"

"That is correct, a lucario along with a couple other pokemon can harness aura energy, have you heard anything else about it?"

"Well I remember the professor researching aura guardians but I don't know much about them"

"An aura guardian and his aura partner, in my case lucario, train their aura's, survival and fighting skills, so that we may solve pokemon and people problems, making sure to always put others ahead of ourselves and act with honor and dignity. Aura itself is a life force and an energy, everyone has a slight amount of aura, but only those with very strong ones can access it. Lucario and I are Aura guardians and partners, do you know why I'm telling you this?"

Ash was awe struck for a second before sarcastically replying, "Because I have a strong aura?"

"Correct"

At a loss for words he just stared at Riley with his mouth wide open

"I was the one who donated the egg to the tournament, I entered so I could see your battle skill for myself and win back the egg just in case I didn't like what I saw. Lucario bring the egg over" the jackal did as told "thank you my friend, now, in this egg will be your aura pokemon partner, if you choose not to be an aura guardian, this pokemon will stay with you, since you may choose to do so in the future. You have an extremely powerful aura that remains untapped Ash, please consider it. Here is my own cross transceiver number, when you want training, call me, I will come to help, this is a special gift you have received aura guardians are almost extinct, it raises my spirits to see someone with such potential. Now if you will please vacate, me and lucario must meditate"

Ash just numbly received the egg and walked like a zombie out, squirtle was close behind, looking just as surprised they made their way back to the room somehom and Ash just released his pokemon and laid on the bed clutching the egg to his chest, squirtle was left to explain the situation to the rest of the pokemon at the end they all in sync looked at Ash with slight awe, but Ash didn't notice.

He once again called for room service for himself and his pokemon, they ate quick and fell asleep, Ash still holding the egg.

It turns out a good nights sleep was all he needed, and Ash was starting to get over the shock and accept the information he received, he woke up his pokemon quickly

"So we got the egg guys, wanna know how?" Ash asked

The pokemon just laughed slightly and pointed at squirtle who for his part was trying to look heroic

Ash chuckled a bit "alright good, lets get some food then train" all of his pokemon got fired up and after a quick meal they went back to training grounds. Ash spent most of the time with pidgeotto and rhyhorn since they had been gone for a bit. Squirtle was trying to do an ice beam and was getting incredibly frustrated, he got the beam started but it would only go a couple feet before it would fade out, Ash just kept on encouraging then they packed it in for the day

The furry wings were a bit larger and Ash knew he would evolve soon, rhyhorn was looking like he wasn't far behind in that respect, he was getting quite large almost five feet long now and about four high, his horn was larger and so were his back legs. His body naturally grew his back legs in preparation for his change in stance to being bi-pedal.

Ash had realized that he hadn't thanked Riley for the egg as he felt it slightly shift in his arms, but when he got to the door no one was answering, when his neighbor opened his door suddenly with an annoyed look

"Will you quit knocking kid? Yeesh, if you're looking for the dude in the Halloween costume he left, your name Ash?

Ash responded with a nod

"Before he left he came over and asked me to tell you too think over his offer, and your welcome for the egg"

That freaked out Ash a bit, Riley had read his mind and he was probably on a plane on the way to Sinnoh by now

Thanking the man Ash walked out of this area of rooms and looked over the ocean, it was bright and sunny above but looking at the horizon there were some really dark clouds, and the swells and rocking of the ship seemed more prominent, but Ash just wrote it off that the were farther form land and that it must be normal. He just decided to head back to the room, he realeased his pokemon into the room and laid on the bed, and decided to take a nap, all his pokemon decided to join him and they all fell asleep

"THIS IS AN EMERGENCY MESSAGE, EVERYONE PLEASE MAKE YOUR WAY TO YOUR ROOMS LOCK YOUR DOORS AND PLEASE STAY CALM" The blaring sound over the intercom jolted Ash and his pokemon awake. It kept repeating loudly and Ash was knocked off his feet as a huge tremor ran through the ship

"Everyone return" Ash returned all his pokemon except jolteon and squirtle, he then carefully placed the egg in his backpack, wrapping his sleeping bag around it protectively "come on you two, lets go check out what's happening, let's find the captain and see if we can help" The two pokemon nodded and followed Ash, to the front door when it suddenly flew open

The trio tensed up as they saw a tall man in the all too familiar black uniform with the red R

"Thunder wave!" Jolteons fur erupted with blue lightning and then struck the rocket in the chest, the smirk he had on was wiped off as soon as Ash had commanded that

The rocket fell over paralyzed but the pokeball in his hand dropped and released its contents. A feral looking brown and beige rat hopped over his body and stared with hate at Jolteon as it launched itself at him, foam flying from his mouth, but was interrupted as squirtle delivered a punishing blow to the raticate with a skull bash, before it was struck with a thunderbolt that knocked it out. Ash gingerly picked up the pokeball and returned the insane pokemon. he was about to put it in his pack when another large tremor shook the ship knocking him off balance, once it was over he straightened up and tossed the ball in his pack, then grabbed two more that were on the rockets waist and also put them in, before he took off down the hallway

He slowly turned the corner that led to railing and saw two more grunts with their back to him

In a low whisper he looked at jolteon "two around the corner, thunderwave him" jolteon charged up, turned the corner and hit the two grunts and they dropped to the ground, he ran up, collected their pokeballs and ran down the railing, making his way to the main deck, he then made the mistake of looking over the railing

At least thirty zodiacs were out in the water on this (the port side) alone, grappling hooks were connected around where Ash estimated the main deck to be, a few boats were still full as he saw the rockets climbing the ropes up and onto the boat before disappearing from view, that's when the emergency message suddenly cut off it's replaying

"Hello S.S. Anne passengers, this is executive Proton, you may have heard of me, you may not have, as I speak Rocket employees are taking over this ship, if you value your life, hand over all pokemon and valuables, you will then be escorted to the life boats and leave the S.S. Anne in our possession, anyone who defies us or attempts to go against us will be killed immediately, thank you for your cooperation"

Ash's skin crawled as he heard that horrible voice for the second time in his life and he had a horrible flashback before he shook his head and shook himself of the memories, now wasn't the time, Ash suddenly realized what the tremors were as another one went off, and Ash could a small explosion go off near the back of the ship, people must be fighting back and he wasn't there to help but he felt there was a larger problem at stake, turning around Ash made his way closer to the front, where the bridge lay.

Ash creeped along as he made his way to the bridge, jolteon's thunder wave making quick work of most grunts, finally making it to the stairwell the door creaked open as Ash stepped through followed closely by squirtle and jolteon, the stairwell was dark as the slowly made their way up, the only sound was their steps on the metal grate stairs. At midway, which was probably close to sixty feet from the bottom of the stairwell they hit a landing and went to continue on when but were stopped when a ear piercing screech came from the top of the stairwell. All three immediately covered their ears but it was still quite painful, Ash went to the railing and tilted his head up the open center and looked up to see a blue blur free falling at them when two wings opened up and flew to the back of the landing and turned around to face its opponents. A manic grin spread across its features and its bloodshot eyes lit up with recognition, glee and bloodlust as it noticed its opponents

"Protons golbat" Ash spat out in disgust as he unconsciously gripped his right side where the two circular scars lay. Ash noticed the goldbat already looked slightly injured but decided it must have been from making it into the bridge

It nodded its large head and flapped its wings quick twice, and two blades of air flew at them, but jolteon blasted through them with a thunderbolt before taking off at it with agility

golbat watched its surroundings intently for the dog but was blasted by water gun, it turned and fixed squirtle with a glare, opening it wings widely it screeched again and made to take off towards the tiny turtle when jolteon reappeared and bit down on it's wings with a thunder fang, and then cut the super effective attack and hit the bat with blue lighting paralyzing it, jolteon had murder in his eyes as he stared at the pokemon that had almost killed his best friend and let out a super charged thunderbolt, making the bat screech with pain, jolteon cut the attack and ran back to Ash as squirtle hit him with another water gun as it recovered, pushing it back and slamming it into the wall.

The bat wasn't done though, squirtle cut the attack and the bat pokemon got up again

'This freaking thing won't quit' Ash thought to himself, goldbat slowly circled the group and Ash, jolteon and squirtle moved in kind until the stairs lay an equal distance to their right and golbats left, he then opened his wings and lunged for the stairs the ran to intercept but golbat was already up in the center of the stairwell flapping madly when all of a sudden its whole body tensed up and small electric currents lit him up slightly as they raked his body, and golbat free fell, past Ash, it was only a couple seconds before a sickening thud resonated up to them.

Ash willed himself not to look but he did anyway, Golbat lay face up, mouth wide open with its large tongue hanging out the side, a pool of blood had already formed and a couple bones were visible as they poked through the blue bats skin. Oh how Ash wished he hadn't looked, he was about to get sick when he was distracted by a bright white light, looking over squirtle's body was shining brightly, and was growing larger.

When the light died down, the pokemon had a triumphant look on his face as he looked at Ash smirking, wartortle was about 3 feet tall, just about doubling his size, and now had large furry ears and long furry tail. Claws now adorned each hand, Ash couldn't help but laugh as the newly evolved pokemon flexed his new muscles and looked quite happy with himself

"Congrats buddy!" Ash said to the turtle and he smiled in return "lets keep going up" both pokemon nodded in agreement and they took off up the stairs, wartortle having an easier time now with his larger limbs. The sounds of a battle were getting louder as they got closer to the top and Ash willed himself and his pokemon to go faster

They made it to the large door at the top in no time and Ash peeked in the small window in the door, but could only make out small explosions as it looked like a battle was being waged, he looked for a second more, before a white flash blinded him, he covered his eyes and grunted in pain, as he rubbed his eyes trying to get the spots out.

He finally looked back into the window looking left first he saw the man he hated most, Proton stood with his muk in front of him and what looked like a haunter cackling loud, he was standing there just grinning and Ash looked to the right and saw why

His brunette rival stood at the right side, a scared look on his face that didn't seem to fit the regularly confident trainer, his kadabra and a wartortle were down in front of him, they looked to barely be breathing, he saw Gary return them quickly before he took a few steps back towards where Ash saw what he believed to be the captain and some crew tied up along the wall

Ash saw Proton mouth something and point at Gary, as Muk grabbed a handful of the sludge off his body is his hand, taking the time he knew he had to shape it into a ball as he flung Ash burst through the door, and wartortle's water gun intercepted the sludge bomb as the ball and water hit the wall of windows at the front of the room, and Ash could see the poison bubble and eat through the glass, he then looked over at his rival who gave a thankful nod, and Ash ran over to him to quickly

"Nice entrance Ashy-boy"

"You're lucky I made an entrance in the first place"

A frown crossed Gary's features "Well look who suddenly has some comebacks"

They were interrupted from their banter by Proton's voice

"Ah, Mr. Ketchum, we meet again" he said with a manic grin to match his eyes that seemed to light up

"How do you know my name?"

"I always do my homework when I meet someone who caused a mission to fail, and oh how glad I am we get to meet again, this time will be even more unpleasant for you I'm afraid" Proton responded then followed the an insane laugh

"Jolteon, the haunter is yours, Wartortle take out the muk, keep distance though"

Once again Ash engaged in battle with Proton

"Gary, untie the captian and crew" He followed Ash's order but didn't seem incredibly happy about it

just then the couple grunts with proton released their pokemon, a couple ekans, an arbok and raticate, Seeing this, Ash released pidgeotto and rhyhorn, and a full scale battle soon broke out, with attacks flying everywhere, Ash had to keep vigilant as he had to dodge quite a few, thankfully where gary and the rest were was far enough back that the missed attacks hit the ground or a wall before making it to them

The two ekans went down with pidgeotto and Ash quickly returned her before a stray attack got her, rhyhorn took out the raticate with a well aimed stone edge and him and arbok stared eachother down, wartortle was having an easier time with muk, as he was able to wash away most of the poison the pokemon sent at him, jolteon was having a tougher time with the haunter it had landed a few shadow balls and seemed to be the best trained pokemon of protons Ash had encountered so far, the battle was slowly being lost until during a small lull in the battle, Proton's radio crackled to life, a frantic voice cut through the static

"Executive Proton, we've lost the back half of the ship! The passengers had barricaded themselves in and we can't get through"

Proton just mumbled to himself "Stupid boss, thinking a bunch of failed trainers could do this mission, why couldn't he send me with a better team" that was the only part he caught but he heard some snippets of only having stupid rats and snakes, but he cut himself off before he got caught up in his loathing of the grunts, and a wicked grin spread across his

"Retreat to the boats, then blow middeck" The crazy look in his eyes returning

A loud "NO" cut through the air as the captain ran at proton, desperation moving his body towards the executive, when an incredibly large tongue materialized in front of him and licked him, dropping him to the floor paralyzed

"As much as I'd like to keep this party going, I believe it's time for me to take my leave, a pity we couldn't play longer Mr. Ketchum, and Mr. Oak, I will be keeping tabs, don't you worry about that"

Muk suddenly launched himself at the side wall, releasing his poison and Proton released his weezing, climbing on top as it levitated out of the hole muk burned and returned the pile of goo

Ash instantly recognized Rob from the tournament as the crew rushed over to the captain

Ash was seething with anger that they had got away but quickly took control of the situation

"Where are the lifeboats on this ship?" Ash asked

Rob stepped forward "A few on each side but most are at the back, we have one just for us at the front though"

"Gary, you and two crew members take the captain to the safety boat, Rob you're with me, we gotta sweep the ship quickly, you last three stay behind and make the announcement to vacate the ship, if a rocket comes, two defend and the third continue the message five minutes maximum then get to the boat Gary's in, let's go!" Ash barked out he returned wartortle and tossed the pokeball in his pocket, strapping it to his belt would take to long, then took off to the stairs Rob closely behind and jolteon beside him

"You take starboard, I'll take port, we don't have time for every level, just this top deck, look for anyone injured and help anyone you can. Let's meet at the back, we don't have much time so lets hustle" Rob nodded and they took off in a sprint in opposite ways as They heard the speakers come alive and the crew member giving directions, Ash kept running but didn't pass anyone, most people were holed up in the back already, As he got closer to mid deck he could see more and more of the boats driving away from the ship, and knew that time was running out

He passed midship and saw a bunch of crew members tied up to one of the light posts that littered the ship, they were most likely hostages the rockets would keep to keep the police off their back once they had the ship

Quickly taking out his knife from his pack he set to work cutting the bindings, and once the member was free they took off to the back of the ship, the knots were to skillfully done to be undone quickly, even more so in the panicked jittery state most of the hostages were in, Ash caught a glimpse of Rob run by, his machop at his side, he slowed but Ash waved him on

The last member was free, he wasn't sure who the guy was, but he looked to big to be anything other than a food taster, he embodied the fat chef stereotype

A megaphone cut through the night air, even louder than the ship speakers

"Well you were quite the rude party guests, no matter, the five minute timer starts now, tick tock everyone, better make it to a boat in time"

And just like that Ash heard the roar of all the rocket boat motors start up and slowly get quieter as they sped away

'I doubt this guy could walk for five minutes, how the hell is he getting out of here' Ash suddenly remember his newest acquisition and released ralts

"Ralts can you teleport this guy and my pack to the back of the ship and then wait there for me? pretty please?" Ralts eyes widened as he looked at the massive man that turned to determination as she nodded and put an arm on him, Ash quickly took his pack off and threw his pokeballs in jolteon whined loudly as Ash pulled his off the belt and went to return him

"Please buddy, there's no time to fight and I want you to be safe" Jolteon nuzzled him and licked his face a few times before Ash sucked him into the ball and put it in with the rest, making sure they were in a different pocket that the rocket pokeballs

"Kid you aren't coming with?!" The man yelled at Ash

"its to many things for Ralts, don't worry I'm quite the sprinter!" Ash responded with his trademark smile and a thumbs up

"Get going ralts, don't come back for me, I'll meet you there" he then turned to who he suspected as the chef "keep her safe" he nodded but seemed reluctant to leave the teen, he opened his mouth to say something but ralts teleported them as she looked at Ash sadly

not dwelling for long he took off in a sprint towards the back of the ship, passing the holes in the floor and small fires from the battles that had raged

He came up to the back deck after a couple minutes of a solid sprint and saw one boat left, he could barely make out the shape of Rob, the chef and ralts

"Ash!" He heard Rob call with happiness and Ralts let out a loud happy trill that he could hear from the distance it was only a 200m sprint to the boat and a smile spread across his face as he ran.

The loudest sound Ash had ever heard made him stop and cover his ears as he yelled in pain but couldn't hear himself, he looked up to see the horror etched on ralts and Rob's face as their boat dropped in the water and they caught a last glimpse of Ash

The heat came next and he then felt himself thrown forwards

Ash felt like he was floating as he made his way to the very back of the ship, vision blurring in and out from blackness to blurriness, to anyone else he would have looked like he was drunk stumbling around, but in his mind he floated across the deck gracefully to the back, red and blue flashes cut across his vision and he saw large dark shapes in the distance. He somehow felt a forceful push from behind, knocking him forwards from his floating and then he didn't feel anything for a few seconds. A slight chill and pain crossed his body next, the concussion dulling his senses from the actual iciness of the ocean water and the large fall he had taken into it, he was a good swimmer but his head was so disoriented and messed up he soon fell below the waves, his body working without his brain as it clawed upward and he breathed in mouthfuls of water fear streaking across his rattled brain, then there were no shapes, no breaths, no primal fear, just darkness.

**AN: I hate cliffhangers in stories, buuuuut I needed to see what it was like to do it to people for once ;)**


End file.
